Change of plan in the teachers presents front. We didn’t make truffles after all. Instead we made fudge which the children chose the flavourings for. Although I gave them the option of adding alcohol they chose sweets. I am with them on this one though as the sweets they chose really worked. There are now six bags of home made fudge for the children to give to their classroom assistants. For the teachers I decided to try and make something different which I had seen on other sites.
I took a chocolate orange (whole) and covered it in Maltesers which were stuck to the chocolate orange with melted chocolate. I allowed the children to cover the whole chocolate orange in Maltesers. The Christmas pudding was starting to take shape and I was quite impressed. Then I rolled out some sugar paste and cut it to form the icing on top of the pudding. To decorate the pudding I added some holly leaves and the finished result was quite impressive.I then gift wrapped the puddings and allowed the children to label them accordingly.
The recipe I chose for the fudge was a case of trial and error. My first batch was made with condensed milk and melted chocolate but this recipe didn’t set very well. The fudge was eaten by my husband and children , so it didn’t go to waste. My second recipe was from a carnation milk recipe but because I didn’t have enough demerara sugar so I improvised and used a mixture of sugar. I followed the rest of the method to the letter and the fudge turned out perfectly. As it was setting I let the children pick the flavourings. We ended up using M&Ms peanuts and chocolate buttons. I did taste a few crumbs and allow my husband to taste test a couple of pieces and the fudge passed the test.
I hope the teachers will be happy with their home made presents. In fact my husband wants me to make some more fudge for Christmas next week as a sweet treat.
There are loads of variations for fudge flavourings. You just have to look on pinterest for ideas. The trick is finding a fudge recipe which works and then changing the flavourings as necessary.