WMGS-Blog

My family has pondered over the origins of the family fudge recipe for years. I remember my Mom making it for special occasions. My Mom and Aunt Carol would tell us stories about how they were forbidden to cook when their mother and father went out for the evening. They would frequently misbehave and make the family fudge. One of my cousins remembered buying it in one of the fudge shops in Mackinaw City. But, we had never seen it for sale before or since then. We didn’t know anyone who made fudge with the unique taste and texture of our family fudge. We concluded that it must be an old German recipe that had been handed down through the generations. Several years ago I searched the internet for more information. There must be someone who also made this fudge. I found a few blogs that talked about a similar fudge. They didn’t know the source of the recipe either. They also theorized that it was of German origin because their family was German. More people wrote in to support the theory because they too remembered a German member of the family making this fudge. No one could conclusively say they knew where the recipe came from. Nevertheless, the German origin theory was beginning to become an Internet Fact.

Last year I tried again. I finally typed the right words into Google and came across the answer. There were some people who remembered a great fudge recipe that used to be printed on the back of a Hershey Cocoa Powder can, but couldn’t find the recipe. The Uncle Phaedrus, Consulting Detective and Finder of Lost Recipes website, http://www.hungrybrowser.com/phaedrus/mphersheyfudge.htm, came to the rescue. I was a little skeptical at first. After all, there’s nothing “old German” about Hershey Cocoa Powder. I clicked the series of links that led me to the recipes. There it was. The family recipe wasn’t exactly the same, but it was close enough. It was identical to the 1936 recipe except ours added 1 tablespoon of corn syrup. continue reading…