Green to the Seam: Easy Peanut Butter Fudge

My beautiful and talented Godchild, Melody, has a passion for cooking and baking just like me! Today we came up with the idea to start blogging some of our favorite easy recipes for teens. This is the first in a series of recipes for young chef's with Melody and my daughter Audrey doing the cooking.

This is a picture of Mel...there is nothing better than starting out my blog with a picture of a really cute girl to get everyone's attention out on the net.

This Peanut Butter Fudge is super simple and delicious!

Recipe:
1 Can Sweetened Condensed Milk 14oz)
2 Cups ( 1 package) of White Chocolate Chips
1/2 Cup Smooth Peanut Butter
cooking spray

Optional: Hershey's Chocolate Kisses

Equipment:
Can opener
Rubber Spatula
Large Microwave Safe Bowl
Square 9x9" pan or rectangular 12"x8" pan
Microwave oven

First get your pan ready. We like to line it with parchment or tin foil. In this case, Melody is using parchment cut to fit and folded over the sides of the pan.

Spray non-stick cooking spray onto the parchment paper liner. Later you will be glad you did because the fudge comes out easier and the pan is easier to wash!

Next get ready to mix. Make sure all of your ingredients are ready. You will have to use a can opener on the condensed milk can. DO NOT USE EVAPORATED MILK INSTEAD!
IT WON'T WORK. Pour all of it into the microwave safe bowl.

Add in the 1/c cup of Peanut Butter by filling up a half cup measuring cup and making sure to smooth it across the top so that it is full completely. The recipe turns out less firm if you do not use the correct amount.

Next add in the entire package of White Chocolate Chips. Not all brands are equal in this department. The Ghirardelli brand is superior to others available in the grocery store that still cost around $3.00 or less per package.

Your mixture does not need to be stirred at this point. You will next put it into the microwave just as it is without mixing! Set the microwave for 2 minutes on high and wait for it to finish.

I know it's hard to wait and kind of boring but 2 minutes is not that long. During this time, make sure you have room in the fridge for chilling your fudge after you are done.

Get the mixture out, it will look like this:

Mix it for about 2 minutes with your rubber spatula until it is smooth and resembles a light tan color like this photo.

Pour the mixture into the prepared pan very carefully, it will be slightly hot still but you won't get burned because it has cooled enough while you were stirring it.

Using your rubber spatula, spread and smooth the mixture out to the edges of the pan. It is okay if it does not perfectly go into the corners because of the paper. You will trim these sides off later and probably be forced to eat them so you don't waste any! Its one of the horrible things you MUST do when creating candy confections...eat them first so you know if it's safe to let family and friends try them out later. (if not, you might have to eat all of it yourself)

Put the pan in to cool for at least 2 hours. Again, it's difficult to wait but the fudge needs to set up.

After you take it out, it will resemble a tan slab.

Using a butter knife, score lines on the fudge but dragging the knife about 1/4" down in a straight (ish) line to make the rows. Melody did four rows vertically and 8 rows horizontally. It is up to you how large you want the pieces of fudge.

We put the pieces of cut fudge into some cute mini-cupcake papers with stripes in brown and aqua on white and some plain brown papers. The colors looked good with the peanut butter's tan color. I find lots of cute cupcake papers at stores like Michael's Crafts. But my favorite source is an Etsy shop, Sweet Treat supplies.

Sweet Treats Supplies is super fast at shipping out my orders and have the best prices. It makes a huge difference with your finished confections to have them presented in these adorable little papers in my opinion. Its around $3-3.50 for 50 liners.

Plain or decorate! It's up to you. This fudge won't last for long.

Melody finished her treats and put them on a cute heart shaped plate. Since she has someone special in mind this Valentine's Day, she decided to make the candy extra festive and add a chocolate kiss on each piece. Either way, the results are sure to make that special guy feel really lucky on February 14th.

Seriously, isn't she adorable? And as beautiful inside as out.
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