I felt like titling this post with one of my favorite lines from Monty Python, “And now for something completely different…”  Over our patio fire last weekend, we made s’mores which I really don’t like, though I loved having mini Hershey bars in the house on a three day weekend.  But come Thursday night we all seemed to be suffering withdrawal from our chocoholicism.  I have regretted passing this disease on to my children and have done my best not to encourage the addiction.  It doesn’t help that I chose a man to father these children who suffers from a mild form of this sometimes debilitating crutch.  As it is, we need to feed the cravings on occasion to prevent utter meltdown and possible hospitalization.

Though it was only Thursday, much too early for Fun Family Friday Night, by 8 o’clock I decided to ditch everything and told my boys to pick a movie for us to watch, that we were making fudge.

We never did end up watching a movie, but we stayed up until 2 a.m. giggling, talking, and sharing some of our favorite music and videos on the computer together.  And there was fudge.  Boy was there fudge!  We threw this batch together with some dark Hershey’s cocoa that I had grabbed on impulse at the store months ago in place of the regular cocoa.  We were all so glad I had documented the ingredients for the blog because we plan never to use another fudge recipe.  Okay, we probably will, but we could think of no other name for it than “Black Gold Fudge” it was so dark and rich, the color of “Texas Tea”, the pure black “bubblin’ crude” that Jed Clampett found while “a’shootin’ at some food”.

We made half of this amount so I am doubling it for the blog.  I’m glad we only made half a pan because it was so rich that I think I will use this recipe for the chocolate truffles I make every Christmas.  One thing I learned from making this, other than how almost magical it is to use Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa for ordinary things, is that it’s really, really hard to get a good picture of fudge.

Ingredients:

1 c.  butter

1 cup of Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa

6 T cream

4 c. confectioner’s sugar

Pinch of salt

2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Method:

Melt the butter in a saucepan.  Remove from heat.  You could even use the microwave to melt it, if you like.

Stir in the cocoa and whisk until smooth.

Whisk in the cream, salt,  and vanilla.  Add the powdered sugar and stir until no lumps remain.

Spread into a 4″X8″ or 8″X8″ pan.

Chill.  Cut into squares and serve.