Saving for Fudge

“Try to get me some dimes!”

My grandmother knew the value of saving money, though throughout her life she seldom had enough to set aside.

So she saved dimes, using pre-printed savings books distributed by Asheville Federal Savings and Loan Association.

The idea was simple; when you got a dime in change from the grocery, set it aside and insert it in a dime book. Fill a book and then when you were in town, drop it off at the savings and loan to be deposited into your account.

Logically, you developed a desire to get a dime or two back when shopping, so you could set it aside to fill the dime book. When mom and I would do Nana’s shopping, her oft-repeated last words as we walked out the door were, “Try to get me some dimes!”

Nana saved for several future events, including to help defray the cost of her own funeral. But, the big annual reason for saving, whether dimes or a dollar or two when she could set them aside, was to have money as Christmas neared so she could make her famous peanut butter fudge.

Peanut butter fudge was Nana’s gift to family and friends. She only made it in early December, yet it was something I looked forward to as the cold of winter tightened its grip.

Nana would cook several batches of peanut butter fudge as the days of December passed. Basically she relied on the traditional Kraft recipe found on the side of the jar of marshmallow creme, but she didn’t add the cup of chopped dry roasted peanuts called for in that recipe. 

She used her savings to purchase enough sugar and butter and evaporated milk and peanut butter and marshmallow creme to make enough fudge to give packages of fudge to all her children and grandchildren, which totaled more than just a few.

As December would begin, Nana’s shopping list would include the key ingredients; five or 10 pounds of sugar, peanut butter, and pounds of butter. Nana never bought too much, though all of the ingredients had long shelf lives. Often if an ingredient was on sale in the summer she would point it out and we could help her get more bang out of her carefully budgeted bucks.

Seldom did a batch of fudge fail, because Nana used a glass candy thermometer to ensure that the temperature of the boiling mix reached the appropriate level for the sugar to “set.”

Nana also used the “soft-ball technique” of judging the consistency of her constantly stirred fudge mixture, and she preferred her gas stovetop over the traditional wood-fired store due to its consistency of heat.

The soft-ball technique involved dropping a splash of cooking mixture into a tall glass of water, and watching to see how the product hardened as it sank. When it hardened into a soft ball, Nana knew that the boiling mix was just right to be poured into foil-lined pans for cooling.

If a batch failed it was usually due to the humidity, for moist weather creates the possibility for the fudge to reabsorb water from the air, creating soggy fudge.

Nana usually scheduled her fudge making for cold, dry days, but I recall at least one year when it seemed to be constantly damp as December advanced, and she was forced to boil the mixture longer in order to counter its moisture absorption capability. The stuffed roiled and popped, and required constant stirring to avoid burning. 

The best fudge had not one burn flake; only pristine tan and creamy deliciousness that melted in my mouth. 

After it cooled, Nana would cut the fudge into one-inch squares and pack them in round tins saved through the years just for this occasion. She would layer the fudge with wax paper so each piece maintained its shape and they didn’t all glom together. Then she’d store the tins in the refrigerator until it was time for them to be distributed.

Nana shared the fudge bounty with the same parting words: “Get the tin back to me so we can use it again next year.”