Purple Sock Spot: fudge

One of my cousins lives in Nanaimo (home of the Nanaimo bar), which is about an hour's drive north of Victoria, where my aunt and grandparents live. We got going in late morning, and made our way up island. We had brunch at the Longwood Brewpub, which was wonderful. It involved a buffet with lots of tasty food, and far too much dessert. :-)

After spending a couple hours with my cousin, we continued on to Coombs, home of the roofgoats. Unfortunately, the goats were invisible, which made it difficult to see them, but we did see the roof, and I could imagine the goats. There is quite an extensive market with all kinds of food and toys under the roof and the occasional goats.

Just next door to the market with the invisible goats is the Hammond Bay Fudge Company. We arrived just as the shop closed, but the proprietor was kind enough to let us come in anyway. He was in the middle of making a batch of mint-chocolate fudge.

The batch had already been started (apparently, quite a quantity of butter, condensed milk, cocoa and a candy thermometer is involved) and the mass was on a large granite slab. Using a large wooden paddle, the fudge was folded and moved around on the table with a couple of short rests. Over the course of a few minutes, the fudge went from a shiny liquid to a thick, dull sludge. The fudgemaker must pay attention to the change in the consistency of the candy - this is what tells him it's almost ready to set. It seems that pretty much all fudge behaves the same, whether it has chocolate or other flavorings or not. It was then scooped into a long wooden trough (and let me scrape a bit off the wooden paddle to taste - mmmmm!). The trough had a movable short end - he knows which setting to use for plain fudge vs fudge with nuts and other options. He sprinkled it with Smarties (the Canadian kind, not the American) to make it identifiable. After letting it cool (and selling us a few slabs of fudge), the trough was turned, the candy turned out, and was ready to cut. This batch, he told us, should make about 33 slices of fudge - each slice more than 1/2 pound each.

There was quite a collection of statuary in front of the fudge shop - apparently it started out as a couple of stone benches, but it has expanded in a somewhat alarming manner.

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