Failed attempts

I recently saw this on Facebook:

Jip, I can relate to this...

And last night I was thinking of exactly this when I was trying to make a batch of fudge and it flopped.  Not once, but 3 times!  Yes, I tried 3 batches.  Well 2 batches yesterday and the first batch a few days ago.  I thought this would be cool for Caitlyn to take to her teachers today as a little thank you present seeing as she won't be going to daycare for the next 2 weeks.

Now I know that this was not me.  This is a recipe that I have made probably a hundred times to date.  So I could probably make it with my eyes closes, except perhaps not the best idea to stand in front of a stove stirring a hot batch of fudge while your eyes are closed.  It was my grandmother's recipe.  Now my mum will remember when we both worked for the same company years ago, the owners asked us if we could make fudge, they'll supply the ingredients and then sell it (yes, we were suckers for punishment) and so we'd make a batch, bring it in in the morning and then by the end of the day would be completely sold out.  So night after night we made fudge. 

Recently I emailed the landlord because I'm sure there is something not quite right with the thermostat or something in our stove.  2 of the plates seem to get hot pretty quickly.  But what do I know.  So she sent some guy to come and have a look and (typical Murphy's law) it did everything as it should and I felt a bit stupid by the end because maybe I was wrong...

But then the other day I put on a batch of fudge and because it takes a bit of a long time to make I get Terence to come and help me stir it from time to time and then suddenly Terence said that it was busy burning.  Sigh!  You leave a man in charge of your fudge for a few minutes and he burns it!

So yesterday morning I thought I'd try and make another batch.  You know, double check that the heat is really low and that I continuously stir it.  And all was going well.  That was until about 15 minutes into the process and it started burning.  And it was on the very lowest setting too.  Took it off the plate and it was so hot that when I held my hand about 20cm above the plate it felt like my hand was burning.  So definitely something up.  Which means I will now have to get hold of the landlord again.  Although maybe this time I might try and do a video clip just to prove I'm not completely nuts.

Now I'm not one for giving up. Those who know me will know I'm pretty determined and persistent ;-).  So last night I decided I will try one more time.  I would use one of the back plates that doesn't seem to give the same problems.  And so that's what I did.  Except initially I had it on low heat and it would just not heat up fast enough to the point that the sugar never completely melted.  I did turn up the heat in the end, but it took significantly longer to finally have it all finished.  For most of it it came out fine.  It set perfectly, tastes okay, but there is a definite "crunch" because the sugar didn't melt properly.  Sigh!  It is not supposed to flop!  And so I didn't send any of it to Caitlyn's teachers and got something else instead.

So yes, finally I had had enough of making fudge for now.  I'll have to make it again when finally the stove is properly fixed.