fail and fail again

I tried round two of “Never Fail Fudge” today.

I gave the last pan to # 1 son, and said, “Eat. Failure is not an option.”

He looked at the fudge and said, “Failure is not an option, but success is a choice.”

All right. I’ll try again.

None of this store brand marshmallow fluff. I went back and got Kraft, looking for the old recipe. And I had the assistance of # 2 son. I had the necessary ingredients ready to boil for approx. 4 minutes and the kitchen timer running to back me up.

And I lost my nerve.

“Sean, get me the candy thermometer.”

“What does it look like?”

“It looks like a candy thermometer.”

“This?”

“Yes.
No.
Dammit. This has no markings. And it seems to be melting. How is that possible? Thermometers aren’t supposed to melt. A bread machine yeast thermometer. Why do I even have this? Who needs a thermometer to measure room temperature water? Try again.”

“This?”

“Yes.
No.
Wait a minute. This only goes to 170. It’s a meat thermometer. What else have we got?”

The stove is covered with sticky thermometers, none of which can do candy. And time is running out. The timer is beeping, and I give up and pull the pan off the heat, and dump in the chocolate.

And fish half of it back out. Since when do chocolate chips come in a bag that’s twice as big as necessary?

And since when does fudge separate? I’ve never seen that before. It’s solid enough to cut. It tastes like fudge. But it’s oozing butter and looks like a satellite photo of Mars.

Third time lucky?

In other news: Kaiju the dog just woke up from a nap, leaned foreward and returned my missing sock.

# 2 son said, “I hate it when he does that.”

I said, “He doesn’t look too crazy about it either. Get the paper towels.”

And it’s nothing that can’t be fixed with the doggy equivalent of flat 7up and soda crackers. Too little and too late to get me out of going to the parent’s house for Christmas. Worthless dog.