Yesterday I made...fudge.

Yesterday was one of those deliciously yummy summer days when the weather is perfect and you're just itching to do something--anything--as long as it's exciting.




So I made fudge. I'm not sure that's necessarily considered exciting, but it was spontaneous enough for me that it made for a fun afternoon. Being the amazing chef that I am (HA! I usually just leave it to my sister, Chloe, because she's actually good.) I googled "five ingredient recipe fudge." and "easy fudge." Because I'm just that talented.

Seriously.

I ended up going with a recipe that seemed simple enough. I'd hunt it down for you, but you can find oodles of fudge recipes at allrecipes.com (where I went). You can find oodles of any recipe there, actually. It's a stockpot. Hence the "All Recipe" part.



So my journey began. I was venturing in the vast wild unknowns of fudge. As we have no microwave (sadly, it died a few weeks ago) I had to make the fudge on the stove. Did you know that fudge can burn? My mom reminded me a few times. I was not gonna have burned fudge on my hands, no-siree-bob! (I was actually hoping not to have burned fudge in the pan either...)



Then my mom said to just put the ingredients in a glass bowl and put the bowl inside a pan. What? Okay. I'll trust her. Even though she did just buy The Joys of Jello cookbook. (I admit, it was for sentimental reasons.) Won't the glass break? I asked (I had earlier asked to just use a glass bowl on the stove--ouch! And you didn't believe me when I said I was no maestro!)

"Nope." She assured me, and with visions of glass exploding and shattering in my face, along with burnt fudge, I began. I had several moments of panic, because I couldn't find a few ingredients (after I poured the other ingredients in the bowl of course--oh, boy!) and then some pan issues, and all, but I was ready. I hadn't been waiting to do something spontaneous all day to end up with burnt fudge and glass in my hands. And a trip to the ER. Nope. Didn't want that either.



As my water began to boil, I frantically put the glass bowl in the pot and waited for the ingredients to start melting. Panicked, I saw only little smears of chocolate chips--no full blown, "Hey, look at me--I'm melting, what a world, what a world!" Granted, it hadn't been a minute yet. Don't look at me like that!



I lifted the bowl out of the pot for a moment and was deluged with steam. Yowch. Add second degree burns to that list of injuries I didn't want to come into the ER for. I put it back in and stirred the ingredients and they turned into goop! Really ooey, gooey goop.

That freaked me out. Of course I would be the one to end up with inedible fudge--typical Hannah.



But then, something magical happened. The goop turned into soft, thick and completely mixed in fudge! It wasn't goopy anymore! And it smelled good. Really, really good. Enough for my siblings to snitch some of it off the spoon.

Perhaps I wasn't a flop after all! The first time since making it, I had hope.

I spooned into a pan and then tried to smooth it out. Tried. How on earth do those chefs get perfectly flat and smooth pans of fudge? And you know what chefs I'm talking about. Those chefs, the ones on Food Network who can make anything look and taste good with no sweat. And they never get burned by fudge, or have glass blow up and shatter in their face, or make trips to the ER because of burns from steam. (luckily, I hadn't either, but I still wasn't clear.)

After I put the pan of fudge in the freezer I waited patiently for it to be done. It took about a half an hour to set and get firm. I checked it at 20 minutes, took it out, and asked my mom to tell me what she thought. She pushed it with a finger and said, "It's done." I however, wasn't so convinced. It wasn't that hard. Clearly her overeagerness to taste my delicious fudge had blinded her to such a degree that she would do anything to eat it. Or maybe she just didn't like super hard fudge. But I, being selfless, said that I'd put it in the freezer for ten more minutes. There was a loud groan from my siblings because of this.

This was how I looked.



Like I said, I was patient. Then I cut it (and probably bended the spatula I cut it with. Yes, spatula. I didn't want to end up accidentally cutting myself! That fudge was hard then!) and took the smallest piece for myself. Which in hindsight, I question, but it was the most accessible.

By then, my siblings were standing near me with plates. Yes, plates. For fudge. Sorry, kiddos, I'm not that generous with my portion sizes.

I had a small spasm of panic. What if it doesn't taste good? What if no one likes it? What if it just tastes like melted chocolate chips? These thoughts did not stop me from tasting it. So far, I hadn't had glass explode, the fudge burn, get burned myself, or accidentally cut myself cutting the fudge. So far so good.

And then, it got better.

That fudge was good. And so worth it. Even despite all of my fears (however reasonable or highly unreasonable they were.) Now I've gotta get rid of it. Oh, wait. Never mind. It's almost gone. All my hard labor (hee hee...) devoured. Like flies to honey. Like moths to light. Like my siblings to the fudge. Wait. Oh, right. It was my siblings.



What have you done that was spontaneous lately?