Friends, get to know this spiced fudge recipe, and I promise you will come to truly understand that yes, you can make fudge without a jar of marshmallow fluff.
Making real fudge is best done on a day with low humidity, so wait for a nice sunny, cool day, grab your thermometer, and get ready to make some delicious homemade fudge.
For a more traditional fudge, you may like my recipe for creamy cocoa fudge with nuts.
And for ease of browsing, you can find all my candy recipes in one place. Thank you so much for visiting!
I might make a couple of enemies around here with my next statement, so get ready:
I think that fudge made with marshmallow fluff is Cheating.
Fudge is all about achieving a very singular texture through
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- temperature and
- crystallization control
The only safety nets one should have when making fudge are 1)a thermometer and 2)a little bit of corn syrup to hedge ones’ bets.
Why You Should Make This Recipe
- This is a large batch recipe and will yield dozens upon dozens of pieces of fudge (228 pieces if you cut them the way I did), making it perfect for gift giving.
- The smoky spices make this fudge a little bit different from the ordinary.
- I give you step by step instructions with as many tips as I can to ensure you meet with success.
The Importance of Temperature
This fudge is based on one that I used to make at the restaurant for mignardises (think mints that come with the check but fancier).
I had always thought that that fudge was a little bit too hard, and now I know why.
I had always used my (not so) trusty candy thermometer, and when I used the same one when making this fudge and then checked its accuracy with my (very) trusty Thermapen, I realized the candy thermometer runs about 5-7 degrees cool.
That might sound like Not A Lot, but when working with sugar, it can be the difference between soft ball and hard ball, or hard ball and soft crack.
So while I thought I was cooking the candy to the soft ball stage, I was really reaching the hard ball stage.
How to Make Spiced Fudge
Ingredients and Substitutions
- granulated sugar: Use a name brand cane sugar here. The melting of and recrystallizing of the sugar is what gives the fudge a creamy mouthfeel, so make sure you’re using great sugar.
- half and half: Provides milk solids, liquid to dissolve the sugar, and milk sugars. As the mixture cooks, the milk solids in the dairy will caramelize yielding a more complex flavor than just sugar alone can
- corn syrup: You don’t need much, but the liquid sugar can keep the granulated sugar from recrystallizing too quickly and ending up with gritty fudge
- semi-sweet chocolate: provides all the chocolate flavor for the fudge
- kosher salt: You’ll use a fair bit in this recipe. The extra salt helps to bring out the spices.
- ground cinnamon: You may omit for a more traditional chocolate fudge flavor profile, but cinnamon goes beautifully with chocolate (see this Mexican hot chocolate pie)
- adobo sauce: from a can of jalapenos in adobo. You could also use ground chipotle pepper instead. Feel free to omit if you want a traditional fudge rather than spicy spiced fudge
- ancho chile powder: or use your favorite chilli powder or even a little bit of cayenne. And like the cinnamon and adobo sauce, you may omit this entirely
- unsalted butter: fat carries flavor, so the butter helps to carry all the deliciously spicy fudge flavor. It also provides extra body and creamy mouthfeel when set
- vanilla extract: rounds out all the flavors
Extra Additions/Variations
To make a traditional nut fudge, leave out the spices (or leave them in), and add 2 cups of toasted nut halves or or chopped nuts. Stir them in right before you pour the fudge into your pans.
Other additions include coarsely crushed espresso beans, coffee beans, or cocoa nibs
How to Make It
- Butter the bottoms of your pans. Line them with parchment or magical Reynolds nonstick foil cut to fit the bottom of the pan and up the two sides. Apply a very thin coat of butter to the paper or foil. Set aside.
- Cut the butter into pieces and measure the vanilla. Set aside.
- Weigh the sugar, half and half, corn syrup and chocolate into a large pot (I used my 5-quart Dutch oven).
- Stir in the salt (go a little light to begin with, and then add more if you need it) and spices/adobo sauce.
- Stir until all the chocolate has melted. Taste it before it gets too hot, and adjust salt/spices as necessary until you love it.
- Continue stirring until the mixture comes to a boil.
- Slap the lid on the pot and let boil for three minutes to wash any Errant Sugar Crystals off the sides of the pot.
- Remove the lid and let boil until the mixture reaches 236F. Take it to 240-242F if you’d like a firmer fudge. I like mine a little softer, so there you go. It only took about twelve minutes for the mixture to reach 236F, so watch it carefully. If you don’t have a Thermapen I strongly urge you to get one. They are Exceedingly Responsive and Accurate, which is very important when working with sugar.
- When the mixture has reached 236F, turn off the heat and move the pan of bubbling fudge off of the burner. Put the butter and vanilla in, but don’t stir it in.
- Let the mixture cool until it’s about 115F.
- Start to beat the fudge with a wooden spoon. Stir and stir.
- Once the fudge gets very thick and turns from a shiny gloss to a satiny gloss (about 105F or so), pour into prepared pans and let set up for several hours.
Slicing the Fudge
The easiest way I’ve found to cut fudge is out of the pan.
- First, cover a cutting board with plastic wrap (or use a plastic cutting board).
- Loosen the slab of fudge from the pan with a small offset spatula and lift it out with the overhanging foil. Place it face-down on the board and peel off the foil.
- Slice into even pieces with a sharp knife.
Equipment You May Need
When making a large batch of fudge, you’ll need a good, heavy Dutch oven. Mine holds 5 quarts and is a good size for this amount of fudge.
A good instant read thermometer is a must. I linked to Thermapen above, and LavaTools also makes an excellent one.
I avoid the clip-on candy thermometers as they are not always very accurate.
Pro Tips for Making Spiced Fudge
Make fudge on a day with low humidity. Sugar is notoriously finicky when it comes to moisture, so hedge your bets by making spiced fudge on a nice, dry, sunny day.
Remember these two temperatures:
- Cook the fudge to 236F. Take it to 240F for a slightly firmer candy.
- Cool to 115F before starting to stir.
You will be rewarded with creamy, dreamy spiced fudge.
When you line your pans with nonstick foil, be sure to cut enough foil to allow it to overhang two sides of the pan. These foil overhangs act as handles and let you easily pick the fudge up and out of the pan.
NOTE: with a large batch like this, it could take up to 2 hours for your fudge to cool to stirring temperatures. If you make a smaller batch, it will take less time.
Take its temperature with your trusty instant-read thermometer every so often and more frequently as it closes in on the magic 115F.
Q & A
Absolutely. No fancy math needed. Just cut all amounts in half. If you just want a small batch, maybe enough for 1 8″x8″ pan, you can even cut the amounts in fourths. I’ll provide those measurements in the notes section of the recipe card.
Fudge keeps well at cool room temperature for several weeks. If you keep your home very warm, you may want to store it, tightly sealed, in the refrigerator.
If you cook everything to only about 230F, this fudge recipe would make a nice spiced hot fudge topping. But I encourage you to give my best hot fudge sauce in the world a try. It really is unbelievably good, and you can spice it just like this fudge if you’d like to.
Serving Suggestions
Serve fudge alone as a little something spicy and sweet alongside a cup of tea or coffee.
But it would also make a nice addition to a holiday cookie tray.
Consider adding a couple of different types of cookies of varying shapes and colors.
These walnut shortbread cookies are cut in little squares. Add a couple of round raspberry shortbread sandwich cookies, along with wedges of chocolate chocolate chip shortbread.
And for the gluten-free folks, add a few of these chocolate peppermint crinkle cookies or these gluten-free gingerbread linzer cookies.
More Delicious Food Gift Ideas
Nothing says love like a homemade gift made with love.
You can give any of the above-mentioned cookies as gifts, or consider summer tomato jam, a tangy cranberry ketchup, or spiced plum chutney.
If your friends are jam fans, consider making the unexpected jam: apricot raspberry jam would make a lovely gift as would blueberry bourbon jam.
A Note About Measurements
Don't let its small price and small size fool you. The Escali Primo is an accurate and easy-to-use food scale that I have used for years. It's easy to store, easy to use, has a tare function, and easily switches between grams and ounces/pounds for accurate measurements.
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The Best Spiced Fudge Recipe
Ingredients
- 66.5 oz. granulated sugar 10 level cups, if you don’t have a scale
- 32 oz. half and half half cream/half whole milk
- 2 oz. corn syrup
- 1 pound good quality semi-sweet chocolate I used 8oz each of Ghirardelli semi-sweet chips and bittersweet chunks
- about 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- about 1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons adobo sauce
- about 1 1/2 teaspoons ancho chile powder the first batch used cayenne. Use whatever sounds good
- 4 oz. 1 stick unsalted butter
- 3 Tablespoons vanilla extract
Instructions
- Butter the bottoms of your pans. Line them with parchment or magical Release foil cut to fit the bottom of the pan and up the two sides. Apply a very thin coat of butter to the paper or foil. Set aside.
- Cut the butter into pieces and measure the vanilla. Set aside.
- Weigh the sugar, half and half, corn syrup and chocolate into a large pot (I used my 5-quart Dutch oven).
- Stir in the salt (go a little light to begin with, and then add more if you need it) and spices/adobo sauce.
- Stir until all the chocolate has melted. Taste it before it gets too hot, and adjust salt/spices as necessary until you love it.
- Continue stirring until the mixture comes to a boil.
- Slap the lid on the pot and let boil for three minutes to wash any Errant Sugar Crystals off the sides of the pot.
- Remove the lid and let boil until the mixture reaches 236F. Take it to 240-242F if you’d like a firmer fudge. For the record, it took about 12 minutes of boiling for my spiced fudge to reach 236F.
- When the mixture has reached 236F, turn off the heat and move the pan of bubbling fudge off of the burner. Put the butter and vanilla in, but don’t stir it in.
- Let the mixture cool until it’s about 115F. This could take a couple of hours.
- Once the fudge reaches 115F, beat it vigorously with a wooden spoon. This starts the crystallization process while incorporating some air and making sure the butter and vanilla are well incorporated.
- Once the fudge gets very thick and turns from a shiny gloss to a satiny gloss (about 105F or so), pour into prepared pans and let set up for several hours.
- Run a spatula around the inside of the pan to release the fudge and then use the overhanging foil to pull the slab of candy out of the pan.
- Place it on a cutting board and peel off the foil.
- Cut into pieces with a sharp knife, rinsing and wiping the blade between cuts.
Did You Make Any Changes?
Video
Notes
Half Batch Measurements
- 33.3 oz. granulated sugar (5 level cups, if you don’t have a scale)
- 16 oz. half and half
- 1 oz. corn syrup
- 1/2 pound good quality semi-sweet chocolate (good quality semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate chips are fine here)
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon adobo sauce (or your favorite hot sauce)
- 3/4 teaspoons ancho chile powder
- 2 oz (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
- 4 1/2 teaspoons (1 Tablespoon plus 1 1/2 teaspoons) vanilla extract
Quarter Batch Measurements
- 16.6 oz. granulated sugar (2 1/2 cups)
- 8 oz. (1 cup) half and half
- 1/2 oz. corn syrup
- 4 oz good quality semi-sweet chocolate (good quality semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate chips are fine here)
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 3/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon adobo sauce (or your favorite hot sauce)
- 3/8 teaspoons ancho chile powder
- 1 oz (2 Tablespoons) unsalted butter
- 2 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
Storing
Store in an airtight container at cool room temperature. If your home is warm, you can refrigerate the fudge. If stacking layers of fudge, place a sheet of waxed paper or parchment between the layers to prevent any sticking.Nutrition
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I love all your recipes! And the detailed explanations that go along with them. Will be trying this fudge soon. Thank you! 🙂
Thank you so much, Marika. I hope you enjoy the fudge, and please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions. Enjoy!
Just wanted to add that marshmallow fluff is gelatin free 🙂 my sister is Muslim and that’s how I know. But your fudge looks great!
Good to know, Steffani! I guess regardless of the gelatin, I still consider “fantasty fudge” to be a shortcut. I love a good, old-fashioned fudge. Still, I should amend the post if gelatin isn’t an issue. Thanks again! 🙂
I am making this tomorrow for my son’-in-law’s birthday!
I hope he really enjoys it, Nadine!
I cannot wait to try this. Tried spicy fudge at a fair and have not been able to find a good recipe. Thank u so much! I am with u all on the sweet makin yur teeth hurt.lol
Enjoy, Jada! And if you have any questions, I’m happy to help. =)
I cannot wait to try this!!! Yum!!!
I hope you enjoy it, Debbie:)
I’m still searching for a fudge recipe I love, and this looks like it could be it. Chile, cinnamon, salt and chocolate is right up my alley!
It’s really good! I hope you like it:)
Thanks, I’ll keep you posted!
Help!!! I made fudge last night, flavor great but texture is grainy. Is there any way to salvage or should I toss it.
Sounds like it was a temperature issue. I’ve never tried to melt and recook fudge, but if you are desperate, I say go for it. Melt it over pretty low heat. Once it has all melted. Turn it up to medium-ish, let boil until 240-245F (this shouldn’t take terribly long since most of the water has already been cooked out). Let sit undisturbed until the temp is about 110-115, then beat the heck out of it w/a wooden spoon. I hope this works for you. Let me know if it was salvageable!
Oh, I just had another thought. You could always turn it into hot fudge sauce by reheating it w/some cream. Jar fudge! 🙂
ugh…I found this post a batch of spicy fudge too late!! My husband knows my affinity for ‘spicy’ fudge and despite his lack of excitment over chocolate, he decided to whip up a batch! He found a different recipe online and went to it…using our candy thermometer. To make a long story short, we now have a mushy tootsie roll consistency puddle in an 8X8 buttered baking dish (to be used as fudge sauce-or eaten off a spoon). BOO. It tastes alright, but as you put it above- kinda two dimensional. I truely think that with the addition of the other flavors you’ve added and the help of a THERMAPEN (thank you for sharing that handy tip), it will make a WORLD of difference. I can’t WAIT to try it!! Thanks again!
Enjoy your “fudge sauce!” Glad you found me, and I hope you end up loving this version of spicy fudge. I need to make some more for Christmas gifts this year. 🙂
Oh Online, I should have you get your paddle out and spank this chef, my mom made fudge all the time when I was young, and I have yet to attempt it. Just call me a scarredy cat, but now I guess no excuses huh? You are the ultimate teacher…I am a visual person!