This makes the best fudge I've ever come across. The basic recipe is adapted from the one in the Marks & Spencers chocolate cookery book by adding more milk and sugar to counterbalance the added chocolate, and making better use of the orange.

Chocolate orange fudge

Makes about 2lb
  • 400g (2lb weight) caster sugar (confectioners' sugar)
  • 250ml (not quite ½ pt) milk (about 9 fl.oz, we're talking big pints here, and I mean real milk from cows, not some nasty watery skimmed fat-free stuff.)
  • 75g (3 oz weight) unsalted butter
  • 120ml (4 fl.oz) maple syrup (warning to Europeans: get real Vermont or Canuck maple syrup, the ghastly `maple-flavoured' sugar syrup you get in most European supermarkets is just plain rubbish)
  • 150g (6 oz weight) dark chocolate (not too sweet: avoid Cadbury's Bournville like the plague)
  • 1 orange (washed to remove the carnauba wax they coat them in to make them shiny)
    • Method
    ¶ Pick a large saucepan with a heavy solid bottom so that it won't scorch.
    ¶ Use a zester to scrape the zest (outer layer of skin) off the orange into the pan. Scrape it as finely as possible, then use a sharp metal edge to squeeze any orange oil out of the pale layer of skin beneath. Do this with care and you should get about half a teaspoonful of oil to add to the zest.
    ¶ Add all other ingredients and stir over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved and the chocolate has melted.
    ¶ Turn up the heat as high as the pan will stand without burning the contents. This varies widely (and wildly) from pan to pan and from stove to stove, so I'm afraid only you can tell by experience how your own equipment behaves.
    ¶ Boil until it reaches 240°F (116°C), the so-called `soft ball' stage. I've never managed to make any fudge go into soft balls in cold water as a test for this, so I eventually found a good, reliable candy thermometer (in a late-nite supermarket in Lowell, MA, of all places, thanks to the perseverance of Brendan Quinn in driving me around at 11pm the night before I was due to fly home!).
    ¶ Turn off the heat, sit the pan into a basin or sink of cold water to cool, but don't for goddess' sake get any water into the fudge! While it's cooling, grease a tin to put it in (just rub a butter paper round the inside of it).
    Let it cool to 110°F (43°C) then beat the fudge vigorously until it starts to thicken and the colour suddenly goes lighter. This is the point when the saturated solution of sugar starts to crystallize the excess back out again, making real fudge.
    ¶ Quickly scrape it all into the greased tin before it solidifies irretrievably. Once it has started to solidify, cut into squares with a very thin, sharp knife.

    Remove from the presence of children, cats, unwanted relatives, partners, neighbours, `friends' etc.