Mamie’s (Million Dollar) Fudge
Fudge recipes using marshmallow cream (or creme) have been around since at least the 1950’s, and for very good reason. They are one of the quickest and easiest types of fudge to make as they don’t require a candy thermometer or any experience or “knack” to determine when the fudge has been beaten enough (the air in this kind of fudge comes entirely from the marshmallow cream). This particular recipe was originally called Million Dollar fudge, but it gained significant popularity after Mamie Eisenhower became First Lady in 1953 when her fudge recipe was published in the cookbook compiled by the Women’s National Press Club in 1955 as well as in a number of newspapers. This lead to it becoming commonly known as Mamie Eisenhower’s Fudge, or just simply Mamie’s Fudge. Of course, I had no clue about any of this history when I was a kid, I just knew that, in my world, there were two kinds of fudge, the kind that grandma made and the kind that mom made, which was this recipe.
I always knew this fudge was called “Mamie’s Fudge”, I just had no idea that name was in reference to a former first lady. In our house, this was the soft, creamy fudge that mom made every Christmas and that dad (and I) loved. Making this fudge was actually a joint effort between mom and dad. Mom would take the recipe to the point where the fudge mixture was removed from the heat and the chocolate and marshmallow cream were added. Then dad would take over for the stirring. As soon as the nuts were incorporated, he would hold the saucepan over the 9×13 inch pan so mom could quickly scrape it all out and smooth it into the pan.
As I said, this was a recipe in mom’s Christmas rotation, and, one year, when I was about 9 or 10 years old, it was directly responsible for me making the naughty list. Mom would make up giant platters of all her Christmas goodies and cover them tightly in plastic wrap. That year, she had asked my older brother and I to carry several of the wrapped platters out to the car so they could be delivered to friends and family. As I was carrying one tray out, I noticed a square of this fudge right on the edge of the platter and temptingly close to a seam in the plastic wrap. I couldn’t resist, I carefully teased open the plastic wrap, extracted the fudge and pressed the plastic wrap back into place again. I popped my stolen sweet into my mouth, savoring it while I walked to the car and back inside again. Now this was an enormous platter, it had literally hundreds of treats piled on it, I felt pretty confident that no one would even notice the single, small piece of fudge missing. Much to my surprise, and chagrin, mom did notice – to this day, I have no idea how she could possibly know that one piece of fudge was missing from one tray, but she did! Obviously what I did was wrong, I know it now, I knew it then – although then it took me a while to ‘fess up – she was so angry and disappointed (the disappointed thing is always the worst). I don’t recall the details of my punishment now, but I deserved it and I never stole a treat from the Christmas trays again. That should give you some inkling of how much I love this fudge 🙂.
As I was testing out the recipe, making sure I could successfully recreate what mom made all those years ago, I decided to also play with some variations. This recipe was somewhat unusual for my mom in that I don’t recall her omitting the nuts. Specifically, she would use chopped walnuts. She had a wooden bowl with a crescent shaped knife (something like this) that she would fill with the nuts and hand to me to chop. I would keep checking with her until I achieved just the right size nut bits. I guess including the nuts makes sense, the time period when she regularly made this recipe predated most of our anti-nut family members.
I figured that nut-free was the first variation I would try. It worked perfectly well, the plain fudge was sweet and creamy, uninterrupted by any textural differences. I will say that it was a tad too sweet for my taste. If I were to make it sans nuts again, I think I would replace one of the two kinds of chocolate with a bittersweet chocolate instead. There is also a noticeable volume difference, the fudge squares are quite a bit shorter in this variation than in the original (I should have expected that since omitting the nuts is omitting two full cups of ingredients, but somehow it still surprised me to see them side by side.).
The other variation I decided to try shouldn’t surprise any readers of this site – chocolate peanut butter, of course! While the original recipe with nuts has all the nostalgia associated with it and I absolutely love it, I think this peanut butter variation is either equal or a very close second to the original for me. I’ve provided all the details of this variation in the notes section of the recipe card, but, in short, I added creamy peanut butter to the base, replaced some of the chocolate with peanut butter chips, added a bit of vanilla and garnished with chocolate chips and peanut butter chips. The salty, nutty flavor of the peanut butter helps balance the sweetness (much like the nuts in the original recipe) and I like the slight textural note from the chips on top.
Equipment
Ingredients
Method
- Butter (or line with non-stick foil or parchment paper) a 9×13 inch baking pan
- Place the sugar, salt, butter and milk in a 4 qt, heavy saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a full boil. Continue to boil for 6 minutes stirring constantly.4 1/2 cup (900 g) sugar, 1/8 tsp (⅛ tsp) salt, 2 tbsp (28 g) butter, 13 oz (369 g) evaporated milk
- Remove from heat and add both chocolates and the marshmallow cream. Stir vigorously and quickly until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is uniform in color. Immediately stir in the nuts.12 oz (340 g) sweet baking chocolate, 2 cups (340 g) chocolate chips, 14 oz (397 g) marshmallow cream, 2 cups (292 g) chopped nuts
- Scrape the mixture into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Refrigerate to set before cutting into squares.
Notes
- I think my mother used walnuts most of the time, I prefer pecans, but you can use whatever nut you prefer. If you don’t like nuts, you can omit them.
- I like to add a teaspoon of vanilla at the same time as the chocolate and marshmallow cream.
- The volume of a standard can of evaporated milk is now 12oz rather than 13oz. If you don’t want to open a second can of evaporated milk for a single ounce, you can add 1oz of heavy cream instead.
- The recipe says simply to boil the mixture for 6 minutes. Most fudge recipes specify to bring the mixture to a specific temperature so I was curious what temperature was reached at that point. In my testing, boiling for 6 minutes after the mixture reaches a full, rolling boil consistently landed in the 233° – 237° F range so if you prefer to use a thermometer you can look for a temperature in that range.
- Add 4 tbsp (64g) peanut butter along with the sugar, salt, butter and milk in the saucepan.
- Add 1 oz heavy cream (or additional evaporated milk) (this makes for a total of 14oz of milk/cream – peanut butter has a tendency to be drying, this helps balance that)
- Increase chocolate chips to 2 1/2 cups (15 oz)
- Replace sweet baking chocolate with 1 1/2 cups peanut butter chips (9 oz)
- Add 1 tsp vanilla at the same time as the chocolate chips, peanut butter chips and marshmallow cream.
- Sprinkle peanut butter and chocolate chips over the surface of the fudge right after smoothing the top.
Private Notes
Nutrition
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