Old Fashioned Soda Cracker Fudge

Old Fashioned Soda Cracker Fudge
Dorcas Annette Walker

This month I will be giving recipes ideal for holiday treats or gift giving. Every year around Christmastime I set aside a day in my kitchen baking cookies and cooking candy. With holiday music soaring in the background and scrumptious goodies filling up my counters, Christmas for me really begins. I love giving homemade gifts of cookies and candy to friends and neighbors; something that quickly became a Christmas tradition for our household. In today’s fast-pace society of readymade items lining the shelves of the stores temping one to take shortcuts, Christmas is a wonderful opportunity to slow down enough to set aside some time to have a family night or friend get-to-gether with homemade food. While glittering lights and holiday sales try to tempt one to spend beyond their budget, why not determine to center this Christmas season on family and friends instead of commercialism? Instead of expensive presents, why not give the gift of time and something homemade? Expensive presents can never substitute for sharing oneself.

Fudge is usually a very sweet and extremely rich type of candy often flavored with chocolate. Even though there is no record of when fudge was first invented, fudge is believed to have been the result more than one hundred years ago of an accidental “fudged” batch of caramels as both caramel and fudge are cooked at a very high temperature and need lots of stirring. Fudge quickly became popular, especially on college campuses. Soda cracker fudge or peanut butter cracker fudge originated by using what one had on hand during the depression era. Another widespread item was cracker candy made by layering crackers on the bottom of a foil-lined pan, pouring the boiled ingredients over the crackers, baking for five minutes, chilling in the refrigerator until set, and then broken into pieces.

My Old Fashioned Soda Cracker Fudge is a simple and easy recipe to make that can use various ingredients for different twists. You can add one cup of butterscotch morsels, chopped walnuts, or pecans to this recipe or for chocolate fudge add: one (12 oz) bag of chocolate chips and substitute brown sugar for white then sprinkle on crushed peppermint candies. The possibilities are endless. Preparation time for my Old Fashioned Soda Cracker Fudge is around ten minutes (not counting cooling time) and this recipe makes about a dozen, one-inch pieces of fudge.

Old Fashion Soda Cracker Fudge

2 c sugar
½ c milk
5 tb crunchy peanut butter
1 (7 oz) jar marshmallow crème
24 saltine crackers

Crush crackers in a blender and line in a buttered 9 x 13 inch pan. In a small saucepan bring sugar, milk, peanut butter, and marshmallow crème to a boil and cook for five minutes stirring constantly with a Wisk. Pour over crushed crackers making sure all the crackers are coated. Let cool until set then cut into one-inch pieces. Store fudge in a tight container as it will last a long time- if not eaten first!

Weekly tip: To get marshmallow crème out of the jar without a big mess first dip a large spoon into hot water repeating as necessary. This will cause the marshmallow crème to slide out of the jar and off the spoon with ease!

Dorcas Annette Walker is a published author, columnist, speaker, freelance magazine writer, and photographer from Jamestown, Tennessee. Contact her at: dorcasannettewalker@gmail.com For more recipes check out her Creative Tennessee Mountain Cookin blog at: www.dorcasannettewalker.webs.com