Peanut Butter Fudge

Beverly...your request is granted. :) Enjoy!

One of the many things I inherited from Dad was my love for peanut butter fudge. Actually I'll eat fudge of any kind, but Dad prefers peanut butter. The problem is, I'm super picky about fudge. It needs to be extremely creamy to make me happy. And now that I've found this recipe, I'm perfectly happy. Amazingly enough, so is Dad. You think I'm picky about the fudge. He's really picky. I was so nervous the first time I made this and gave him some, but he said he loved it. (He does not say that lightly when it comes to food.) So I'm still making it and he's still eating it. Last Saturday was Dad's birthday, so I made a new batch - a whole pan just for him.

I love this recipe because it has very few ingredients, and it does not take long to make. I can usually have it completely done (finding ingredients to tossing dishes in dishwasher) in 15 minutes or less. But do beware - this is addictive!

The Recipe:

2 cups sugar
1/2 cup milk
1 1/3 cups peanut butter
1 jar (7 ounces) marshmallow creme

In a saucepan, bring the sugar and the milk to a boil. Boil for 3 minutes. Add the peanut butter and marshmallow creme to the pan and mix well. Pour into a greased 8 inch square pan. Chill until set; cut into squares.


I prefer this recipe with creamy peanut butter, since it is such a creamy fudge, but sometimes I've run out and have had to use some (or all) crunchy peanut butter. It's really good no matter what you choose to use!

My first panic when making this for the first time was knowing when to start the 3 minute count for the boil. At the sign of the first bubble? When it was really going strong? After some experimenting, I learned that when there's a pretty consistent boil around the edge of the pan and maybe a good boil starting in the middle...start counting.


Once it gets going, it will boil up quite a bit. Since there's so much sugar in there, I stir it every 30 seconds or so just to make sure it's not burning/sticking to the bottom of the pan.

Once the boiling has finished, you have to work pretty quickly to stir it together before it starts to set up. So while I wait on the boiling part of the recipe, I go ahead and open up the marshmallow creme and get the peanut butter measured so I am ready to move when the timer sounds. This little kitchen tool right here is one of the best investments I ever made in my culinary life. I h-a-t-e measuring messy foods. Mayo, sour cream, peanut butter - all that stuff irritates me. But Pampered Chef made this Measure-All cup that measures dry ingredients on one side and liquid on the other (that bottom part is a cup when flipped over). You just slide the bottom of the dry measuring side down to the measurement you need, fill up the space with your ingredient, and just push it out into the bowl. It's one of the greatest inventions ever, I think. They also just came out with a smaller version recently.

I put the marshmallow creme and the peanut butter right in the pan - the leftover heat helps melt them down a bit. (Be sure you actually do remove this from the heat before you start sirring.)

I'd recommend using a pretty sturdy spatula or spoon. I almost broke a flimsy little spatula one time when trying to stir this. You have to be a little careful because the sugar/milk part is very runny (and hot!) and the marshmallow creme and peanut butter are so thick. You don't want to flip the hot sugar/milk out and burn yourself! Stir it really well so you don't end up with patches of marshmallow and patches of peanut butter.

Pour almost all of it into a greased baking dish. (Half the fun is leaving some in the pan to sample.) You can just let it stay out in room temperature, but I put mine in the refrigerator - usually overnight - and then it will be good and ready.

I forgot the official "TA-DA!" photo - but it pretty much looks the same as above - without the spatula in the way.