Oh, gosh, peeps: you guessed it. I have another (dare I say “fab”) recipe calling for Colavita Olive Oil . . . my fave . . . for you. And it’s a recipe that is pretty close to my heart because it is a recipe for fudge. Now I have an interesting relationship with fudge (in case you were wondering) because I have not always been a huge fan. In fact, I was basically the opposite of a fan. No, I wasn’t a fudge “hater,” per se, but I really had no time for fudge and didn’t really understand all those folks who did.
But then I wrote my second cookbook, The Vintage Baker, and I included a recipe for fudge in the book, despite feeling kind of meh about fudge . . . Now, I did this because the book is full of old-fashioned recipes and fudge is – if nothing else – kind of old fashioned (ie: people have been making fudge for a very long time . . . ). And when the book was published and folks started making recipes from the book, guess which recipe everybody loved? Yup: the fudge recipe. In fact, the fudge recipe was so popular that I ended up making it on national television and it lives on on lots of different sites other than my own, including this one.
So, this is a very long way of saying that when I was thinking about my next recipe for Colavita, I thought of how much I love the combo of chocolate and olive oil and wondered about drizzling some on fudge (since everyone seems to love fudge, including me, now). I decided to fill my fudge with coconut and toasted almonds (which is a stellar combo, FYI), to sprinkle it with flaky sea salt and then drizzle with oil right before serving and wow: was it ever tasty. Yes, it is kind of unusual to eat a piece of fudge with a little drizzle, as it were, but it is really special. The combo of the grassy olive oil and the rich chocolate and the sharp salt, is just otherworldly and I do hope you’ll give it a try. Oh, and if you’d like to see me make this fudge, you can do so here.
Coconut Almond Fudge with Olive Oil and Flaky Sea Salt
Ingredients
- 16 ounces dark chocolate coarsely chopped
- 1 teaspoon table salt
- 1 1 ⁄4 cups sweetened condensed milk
- 1 Tablespoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 cups almonds toasted and coarsely chopped, or any nut you like
- 2 cups sweetened shredded coconut toasted
- Flaky sea salt for sprinkling
- Turbinado sugar for sprinkling
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil for drizzling or more
Instructions
- Grease an 8-x-8-bx-2-inch pan with nonstick cooking spray or softened butter. Line with parchment paper.
- Put the chocolate in a large heatproof bowl and set over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir constantly with a rubber spatula until the chocolate melts. Add the salt, sweetened condensed milk, and vanilla. The chocolate may seize up temporarily. Don’t worry. Remove from the heat.
- Add the almonds and coconut and stir with a wooden spoon until they are fully incorporated Transfer the fudge to the prepared pan, drape with plastic wrap, and flatten with your hands. Sprinkle with flaky sea salt and turbinado sugar.
- Gently score the fudge with a paring knife. First, make 6 vertical lines from the top to the bottom of the pan and then 6 horizontal lines from the left side to the right, creating a 36-square grid. Then, within each square, make an X – this will give your olive oil drizzle a place to seep into the fudge . . .
- Place in the refrigerator until hard, about 2 hours. Using a sharp paring knife, and following your scored lines, cut the fudge into 36 pieces and right before serving, drizzle each square with olive oil, letting it seep into the X.
- Fudge will keep tightly wrapped on the counter for up to 1 week.