a-fudge-tasting we will go!

woke up this morning to a lovely spring day, with blue skies and bright (not warm though!) sunshine. hubby said he wanted to treat me to brunch so we headed out to one of my favourite local lunch spots - the country market in howth. after i was well-fed and content, i naturally wanted to make my way down to the local market that runs there every sunday. it's a great little market with lots of homegrown produced goods and for me, i always believe that it is good to support local producers.

anyway, let me get to what this post is really about...FUDGE, FUDGE GLORIOUS FUDGE! now, many of you might not be that familiar with fudge. but according to wikipedia...

Fudge is a type of candy, usually extremely rich and sometimes flavored with cocoa. It is made by mixing sugar, butter, and milk and heating it to the soft-ball stage at 240 °F (116 °C), and then beating the mixture while it cools so that it acquires a smooth, creamy consistency.

sounds good, right? well, at our local market there is a stall there every week called Man of Aran Fudge and i have been eyeing it for some time because the fudge looks amazing...more like bars of fragrant soap than fudge. i guess i have grown up thinking of fudge in the traditional sense with that creamy brown colour so to see it like this is a real wonder and stimulation for the senses!

peppermint & choc chip fudge

cappucino fudge

strawberries and cream and banana chocolate twirl fudge

maple nut, nutty choc fudge and vanilla rum raisin

so i took the plunge today and bought a box. you get a box for 9.50 euros and you get to choose 4 different flavours to fill the box up with. it's a real tough decision...REAL tough as there is so much that catches your eye that you just constantly seem to get distracted. because we were buying it as a gift for my mum, i went with flavours that i felt she would enjoy and eventually settled on - banoffi fudge, cappucino fudge, bailey's fudge and maltesers fudge. the pieces were sliced up and fit perfectly in the box.

then came the taste test. it was hard to choose which one to try first because they all looked so creamy and delicious...but we went for the malteser fudge first...

this was quite sweet, but definitely had a distinct malteser taste off it. the fudge was very luscious and creamy and had a delightful melt-in-your mouth quality to it. this was my favourite. we then moved on to the cappucino fudge...

this was my mum's favourite. she loves cappucinos and will always have one when we are out and she felt that this had a lovely strong taste of cappucino. we both also really liked the way it looked...like an actual cup of cappucino! next came the banoffi fudge...


this looked delightful with the caramel coloured swirls in the yellow fudge. when you tasted it, initially you received an overwhelming taste of banana...i mean, i like banana and all, but when the taste is really overpowering sometimes i find it a bit too much. but then as the fudge started to melt, you tasted the toffee flavour coming through. i would have preferred to taste more of the toffee though because that's the part i really like about banoffi! finally we moved on to the bailey's fudge....

this was perhaps the least interesting taste-wise out of all the fudge. the baileys flavour definitely could have been stronger. to me it tasted rather bland and as if there wasn't much baileys in there which was kinda disappointing when that is the flavour it's being sold as.

all in all, the fudge was very enjoyable. however, i don't think i could eat heaps and heaps of it at a time because it is sweet and luscious. a box like this would probably last me awhile and i could enjoy a cube with a cup of tea or coffee. or maybe i might try chop some up in a cupcake...now there's a thought :)