Cocoa Fudge

I have a theory that hasn't been tested but it seems that people are either really good cooks or really good bakers.  But rarely do you find someone who's both.  Really good cooks don't have boundaries.  They throw in a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, they experiment, and keep playing with a recipe until it suites their needs. And they just have a sense for what new ingredient would be good in an already wonderful recipe.  Really good bakers know that you have to precisely follow the tried and true rules and if you change the least little thing it could ruin a whole batch of whatever you're making.  

I wouldn't say I'm "really good" at either.  But I'm definitely NOT a baker.  It's my opinion that my mother was the opposite.  Now I'm hearing all those gasps out there from friends and family who are saying "your mom was a great cook!"  but I'm telling you folks she had a few hits but she came up with some strange stuff sometimes.  It was very hit and miss at dinner time.  But what my mother was exceptional at was baking.  

There were certain things she cooked really well.  She always made me a batch of potato soup when I was sick as a kid.  She also could fry a chicken like nobody's business with gravy that would make any southerner proud.  The one thing that people think of when they think of mom was her bread.  She always had a sourdough starter going and baked bread often.  I grew up wishing I could have just regular plain white bread and didn't realize until I was in high school what a treat it was.  I do have her recipe for her sourdough starter but it is a full time job.   ok, so.. it's not a full-time job but I just don't want it bad enough to go to all of that effort.  I will gladly post it another time for those of you who want it.  

Something that was a tradition for me as a little kid growing up was having mom's candies that she always made around Christmas.  She always had requests for it and gave it away to friends and neighbors.  I just happen to have a few of her recipes and will share them for you.  

In the next few days I plan to post recipes for some of those.  

Today I'm going to give you the recipe for Cocoa Fudge.  I would post pictures of me making this but it would be a failure of epic proportions. And, I'm not gonna lie.... I just don't want to.  Plus I notice that you have to have a candy thermometer in these recipes and well, I don't own one! And the recipes have descriptions that are like a whole new language to me.  So there.  Now that I've justified my behavior I'll simply share the recipe.

Cocoa Fudge

2/3 cup cocoa

3 cups sugar

1/8 tsp. salt

1 1/2 cups of whole milk (I say whole because this recipe was from the 70's and I know we used that)

1/4 cup of butter

1 tsp. vanilla

Combine the cocoa, sugar, and salt in a large sauce pan and cook over medium-high heat.  Add the milk gradually and mix thoroughly and bring to a bubbly boil stirring continuously. 

Reduce heat to medium and continue to boil without stirring until the mixture reaches 232 degrees F

Remove from head and add butter and vanilla- without stirring. Allow fudge to cool until it is 110 degrees F.  

Then beat either by hand or with mixer until fudge becomes thick or loses some of it's gloss.  Pour quickly into a lightly buttered 8x8x2 pan.  Cool completely and then cut into squares.