Fudge Kitchen

There is a place in Canterbury near the Cathedral, at the top end of the Kings Mile, that smells devilishly divine.  As you walk past you are hit with wafts of warm caramel, indulgent notes of toffee, vanilla drifts of superheated sugar and sinfully rich hints of melted chocolate.  What makes this a real test of will is the sign outside that tempts you in with the promise of free samples.

I'm talking about the Fudge Kitchen

The hunter green shop front gives way to a business that has been perfecting its fudge recipes for over 30 years, using traditional techniques and methods that are nearly two hundred years old.  All the fudge is made in-house in the great bronze fudge cauldron and on the marble slab where, if you get lucky with your timings, you can watch the fudge artisans doing their stuff.

If watching isn't enough for you, then you can always get down and sticky with the fudge yourself in one of their fudge making experiences!  For the cool price of £60 for two people, you can learn the basics of fudge making, put yourself into a sugar coma on free tasting samples and walk out with 4 slabs of fudge to take home.  Not bad value to be honest!  They also do the Fudge At Home kits where you can get scientific in your own kitchen with your very own sugar thermometer and fudge tools and a lot of cream.

We will get onto the fudge itself in a moment, I promise.

For now, let me tell you a little bit more about fudge in general.  Fudge was originally 'born' at a female college in Virginia in the States, not in Cornwall or Devon surprisingly.  Apparently a college lecturer was taking a class in toffee making when the temperature of the concoction was not taken high enough. The end product was called ‘fudge' and in one fell swoop two things were invited; a creamy, delicious treat and the term to 'fudge' something.  

The Fudge Kitchen specialises in American style fudge, using a recipe that relies on the creamiest of cream instead of butter to give their fudge its distinctive, addictive texture and help the vanilla flavour maintain its creamy colour.  They must be doing something right as they now have Fudge Kitchens in Canterbury, Bath, York, Cambridge, Windsor, Edinburgh and Oxford (all of which, coincidentally considering the origin story of Fudge, are towns and cities with major Universities present).  They are a proper Kentish company; their head offices are in Lyminge, not far from Canterbury.   Can't get to a store and currently clawing and the screen to get your paws on some?  Don't worry - they deliver.   You may even get really lucky and find them at a stockist near you.

They don't just do big slabs of fudge. For those of you who prefer your fudge in liquid form, they also do sachets of drinking fudge in a multitude of different flavours, from Tangy Orange to Gorgeous Ginger (I married one of them) and the original Sea Salt Caramel.  You can have these hot in the winter or as a seriously different milkshake in the summer.

Then there are the fudge sauces.  Pancake Day is admittedly behind us, but I'm a firm advocate for pancakes throughout the year and these would make an amazing topping.  They would also be awesome in a sticky toffee pudding, poured over ice cream, in a bread and butter pudding (the chocolate and ginger would be especially brilliant for this), baked into cakes and cupcakes or as an indulgent icing or as a fudge fondue with marshmallow and fruit skewers. 

So that's all the little added extras that the fudge kitchen specialises in.  Now onto the main event - the fudge itself.

The first thing to note is the variety of fudge you can get - from your traditional toffee and chocolate flavours to seasonal classics (at the moment Hot Cross Bun and Lemon and Ginger are on the menu for the spring time). 

You can try a sliver of any of the fudges before you buy one of the enormous, 175g slabs that they have for sale in the the window.  We had come in to build a box to take to the pub for my birthday for everyone to share - a little goes a long way.

We got a 6 slab box for £22 to take home and filled it with Traditional Toffee (very sweet and warm), Vintage Vanilla (pure white with a warm vanilla taste that comes from pods and not essence), Caramel Swirl (made from the Vintage Vanilla fudge which has homemade caramel swirled through it), Chocolate Classic (my favourite, dark and velvety and most definitely not for children - it has an almost bitter edge that cuts through the sweetness of the fudge), Double Trouble (dark chocolate fudge with great chunks of white Belgian chocolate running through it) and Belgian Chocolate Swirl (dark Belgian chocolate and the classic Vanilla fudge swirled together). 

The flavours are like no fudge you have tasted before.  All of them are decadent, rich and creamy; a small morsel goes a very long way and will satisfy even the strongest of sweet tooth cravings. Our box lasted for ages. Half of the box fed 8 people as a dessert, the other half we took to rehearsal with 15 people there who gradually munched their way through it.     

Why not consider something a little bit different from your traditional Easter eggs this year, and go for a box of fudge for the family, or a home kit so you can make your own fudge at home with the kids over the Easter holidays (supervised closely of course!)  They would absolutely love it!

You can find the Fudge Kitchen on facebook and twitter and they have a blog so why not say hello?

If you like (or hate!) what you have read, please do let me know in the comments below or slap me with a cheeky follow, or say Hi to me on my Facebook group or Twitter or Instagram!

Sticky Orange Cake

Forget chocolate this Easter Sunday.  I know, I know it is traditional but hear me out.  Everyone will be eating it, everyone will (more than likely) be regretting the sheer quantities of that smooth, creamy, sweet decadent delight and will be after something that is a bit more refreshing, but just as delicious.

Let me present the Sticky Orange Cake.  It just screams of the spring time zing and bounce that those ridiculously cute spring lambs always seem to excude.  It's a great cake for teatime on Easter Sunday, a late afternoon snack that just tides you over into the evening as you lounge in front of the film, surrounded by the family and with a big steaming mug of tea.

It's also really quick and easy as well.  I first made it one night in a panic as I realised I had completely forgotten to get something for my work's bring and buy sale raising money for The National Autistic Society.  I had promised a cake to sell and I was damn well going to deliver.  I looked in my cupboards, saw the flour, eggs and oranges, scouted around online and saw this recipe and knew immediately what I could make. 

This cake is light, fresh, moist and the syrup really does make this a case of sticky fingers post munching's!  I've tweaked it slightly and added some spices, just a little to give it a bit of depth.  If you add more you take this cake out of the realms of spring and firmly into Christmas territory. 

You need:

 

For the cake

175 grams self-raising flour
175 grams caster sugar
175 grams butter
5 tablespoons milk
2 medium eggs
1 large orange (grated zest of, save the juice for the syrup) 
Teaspoon cinnamon
Teaspoon allspice 

For the syrup

75 grams caster sugar
1 large orange (juice of, use the zest in the cake)

For the icing

100g icing sugar
1 tablespoon milk
1 large orange (grated zest of, you don't need the juice for the cake but it's good to eat anyway!)

Grease a medium loaf tin and preheat the oven to 180 degrees

Put the flour, sugar, butter, milk, eggs and orange zest into a large mixing bowl. Whisk until all the ingredients are incorporated (I use an electric whisk but you can do it with a manual one, it just takes some time and some sweat!)

Pour the mixture into the loaf tin (try and resist the urge to eat the leftover cake mix, it's hard as it tastes really good!) and bake for 40-45 mins, until risen and golden.  The top may crack slightly but don't worry!  When a skewer comes out clean from the centre of the cake it is done.

When the cake has just about 5-10 mins left in the oven, heat the syrup ingredients together in a small saucepan. Remove the cake from the oven and make some holes in the top with a skewer.  Pour over the syrup, making sure to cover the whole cake (while the cake is still in the tin) and leave until the cake is completely cold.

Ease the cake from the sides of the tin with a knife before trying to remove it from the tin and turn it out onto a tray.  Mix the icing ingredients together, adding more milk or more icing sugar if the consistency isn't to your liking.  I find it works best as a thick pouring consistency.

Ice the cake haphazardly and scatter with the orange zest.  It should keep for a day or so in an air tight container.

If you like (or hate!) what you have read, please do let me know in the comments below or slap me with a cheeky follow, or say Hi to me on my facebook group or twitter!

Home Made Chocolate, Lemon and Passion fruit Creme Eggs

I haven't had a Cadbury's Creme Egg yet this year.  This is quite an achievement for me.  I'm not sure why - it has not been a conscious choice, I just haven't gotten around to one!

I thought I would give my own a go.  The lemon cheesecake filling is light and airy, the passion fruit yolk is sharp and cuts through the creamy white.

This is another recipe that I had seen on Pinterest originally made by Steph at Raspberri Cupcake and then I also saw it crop up on The Londoner's blog.  I had been intrigued by the idea for a while and it's not that difficult a recipe to make - it is just a bit trickier for them to look good.  As you can see from mine, they look a bit more scrambled than Rosie and Steph's do, but it is the taste that counts!

Ingredients:

6-8 hollow chocolate eggs (I got mine from Morrisons in an Easter Egg hunt bag)
30g icing sugar
1 lemon (juice)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (I used Madagascan)
150ml whipping cream
2 Passion fruits
1 tsp apricot jam
1 tsp butter

Method

Using a serrated knife, cut the tops off your eggs.  I discovered that the closer you can get to the top of the egg, the better for filling later.  Keep the tops if you want to re-seal the eggs later - try and keep them next to the egg so you don't get mixed up!

In a bowl, combine the lemon juice, cream cheese, icing sugar and vanilla

In a seperate bowl, whip the cream to soft peaks

Gently fold the whipped cream into the cheesecake mix until combined.

Fill your eggs with a spoon.  This gets messy.  Try and get the top as level as possible.

Pop the eggs in the fridge and make your yolk.

Sieve the passion fruit into a saucepan.  Using a pestle on the pulp gets a lot more juice out and breaks down some of the pips.   Add the apricot jam and butter and heat to a sticky sauce.

Using something small and thin (I used a skewer) make a small hole in each egg and spoon your yolk in.  It may be worth letting it cool slightly first - I used it hot and it melted some of the cream cheese filling!  You may need to use some of the cream cheese filling to seal any gaps that cause the yolk to overflow.

This is the point where I wished I had thought ahead.  I realised I had no egg cups or shot glasses to rest the eggs in while they set in the fridge.  Luckily I had an egg box so that would have to do!

Pop your tops back on if you want; use some of the cheesecake filling to grout the lids back on.

Stick them in the fridge to set - they need at least 15 minutes.

Eat like a cream egg.  This is personal choice.  As they say, how do you eat yours?