Oh, fudge!

A friend of mine has a saying: Cooking is a craft, baking is chemistry, but candy-making is an art.

Some confectioners create three-dimensional sugar sculptures, but the sweet taste of a square of fudge as it melts on one’s tongue is the best kind of artistic encounter.

Too bad I’m just not the artistic type.

Mistakes — I err on the side of grainy or gooey — still taste delicious, but the secret to making fudge is just beyond my reach.

Lyla Williams has the process down.

As proprietor and chief fudge-maker of Touch of Glass Workshop and Fudgery in Warsaw, Williams makes between 5,000 and 6,000 pounds of the sweet stuff annually.

“That’s a lot of fudge for a little one-man band like me,” she said.

She generally makes batches of the different sorts daily — the shop offers 16 flavors — alternating chocolate-based and vanilla fudges.

The keys to making great fudge are time, temperature, fresh and carefully measured ingredients and the way its mixed.

Williams makes fudge in the back of her shop, and has a system for getting it done. She pre-measures all ingredients, which are laid out neatly.

She uses a large electric kettle — a professional piece of equipment that controls the temperature and mixes the fudge — and times each step with a timer hung on the wall.

“Instead of me standing over a hot stove ... we cheat a little bit” with the kettle, she said.

Keeping the temperature consistent is an important part of the process. Home cooks should take careful note of the reading on a candy thermometer.

“When (a recipe) says 260 (degrees), it means 260. Not 258 or 262,” she said. “I learned that lesson the hard way” making divinity.

She uses fresh ingredients and real butter, and makes it in small batches.

“I could make a lot of fudge and have it up at the counter, ‘wow,’ ” she said. “But ‘wow’ doesn’t taste good.”

What does taste good is the fresh product. When a customer purchases fudge from her shop, it is no more than two days old.

“The average candy bar you get is six months old,” she said.

She starts with butter and cream, and lets the two combine before she puts in sugar. She adds dry ingredients very slowly.

“It gives it time to mix,” she said. “All those sugars will dissolve and melt in with the (cream) and butter.”

There are many different methods and recipes for fudge — some swear by slab fudge, hand-made on marble — but Williams said she makes specialty fudges developed from recipes found on the Internet.

“As long as you make good fudge, it doesn’t matter how you make it,” she said.

She does admit to a few kitchen disasters, with both the techniques and the recipes.

“When it’s too thin, it’s really a mess,” she said. Too thick, and it doesn’t stay fresh as long.

She also tried some recipes that sounded good, but didn’t turn out as well as she’d hoped. Strawberry cheesecake was a success, but pineapple cheesecake didn’t quite take. Bubble gum-flavored fudge was another failure.

“We don’t grow up swallowing bubble gum,” she said.

Peanut butter fudge is her best seller, and turtle fudge is her signature flavor. She also does monthly specialties such as creamsicle, key lime, apple pie, and pumpkin pie.

Her granddaughter, Kristen Huffner, 12, is in training. She said she wanted to help in the shop since she was little.

“I think the hardest part for me is getting it cut,” she said.

She, too, has had mishaps in the kitchen. She spilled some fudge and burned herself once while making a batch.

Still, a little pain is worth it.

“It’s really good tasting,” she said. Her favorite flavor? Butterfinger.

We took a tip from Williams and searched out a fudge recipe on the Internet.

Old Fashioned Chocolate Fudge Recipe
1 1/2 cups milk
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate (squares)
4 cups sugar
3 tablespoons light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter or margarine
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
Combine milk and chocolate in medium-size heavy saucepan; cook over low heat until chocolate is melted. Add sugar, corn syrup and salt and cook, stirring constantly, to boiling.
Cook without stirring to 234 degrees on a candy thermometer. (A teaspoonful of syrup will form a soft ball when dropped into cold water.) Remove from heat at once. Add vanilla and butter or margarine, but do not stir in.
Cool mixture in pan to 110 degrees, or until lukewarm; beat with wooden spoon until mixture thickens and begins to lose its gloss. (This will take about 15 minutes.)
Spread in a buttered 8x8x2-inch pan. Let stand until set and cool; cut into squares. Makes about 2 pounds.
Source: http://www.fudge-recipes.net/old-fashioned.htm