FUDGE WARS!

I was YouTubing around (late at night, like always) and began to look at fudge recipes, as my last two batches hadn't turned out very well. I found the following jaw-dropping exchange between what could only be called a fudge scientist, and a few other people who were obviously having him on: but what made it even more delicious (pardon the pun) is that he had NO IDEA they were having him on. He took them entirely seriously in their earnest questions about the specific gravity of the fudge he was making - even asking him for a copy of his spreadsheet! - and just continued to pontificate, a self-involved, know-it-all, university-certified crashing bore, the type you never want to get caught with at a party. He ripped into the one person who had something intelligent (not to mention relevant) to say about the whole thing, accusing her of finding spiritual fulfillment in failure. Ain't YouTube grand?


MrSwanley2 years ago (edited)
I have tried making fudge many times, and found it near impossible to get consistent results using this technique. Then, being an engineer, I realised that both temperature and soft ball tests are (unreliable) ways to estimate water content. If you knew the target water content you could just measure it directly by weighing the pot and contents, before and after - there is no need to estimate it. I now believe that perfect fudge has a water content of around 10.5%. Hence with this recipe your starting weight is 1094g (+pot) and I predict that if you cook it until you reduce to 931g (+pot), leave to cool for 8 mins, beat for 5 minutes and pour... you should end up with perfect fudge every time. I made myself a little spreadsheet to calculate moisture content of common ingredients, and so far I've hit the nail every time I've followed it. In fact this method is precise enough to go for a particular type of fudge, e.g. moist or slightly dry.
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AnyaLake1 year ago
+MrSwanley well good for you, you just took the joy out of it!
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MrSwanley1 year ago (edited)
+anyalake The joy comes from eating and gifting perfectly made fudge, in fact I'm not aware of what other joy there is to be had. However, if you get some kind of spiritual fulfillment from failure then you can just keep on doing what you're doing. Nobody is forcing you.
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Joseph Mory1 year ago
+MrSwanley from one engineer to another, would you care sharing that spreadsheet?
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MrSwanley1 year ago
+Joseph Mory I'm willing, but I don't know how to get a file to you. I don't use any file sharing sites and I believe YT would block the URL anyway. I don't see a personal message system either. Besides which, the spreadsheet is nothing special. It's just a list of ingredients by weight (g), for each ingredient I input an estimated water % and use that to calculate the water grams. I sum the columns to calculate total weight and total water %, and a final section allows me to enter a target water% and predict what the total weight should be when that amount of water is removed. Basic assumption that all mass lost is water vapour. My water% estimates for important ingredients are milk(87%), sweetened condensed milk(33%), butter(15%). That's in the UK: different parts of the world have different standards for solids content of dairy products, so I would double check those.
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Joseph Mory1 year ago
I'm sure I'll be able to figure it out, thanks for the input!
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AnyaLake1 year ago
a spiritually fulfilled person would have sent a PM, exchanged emails or even posted onto google docs given that everyone posting here by definition has a google account. Right back to failing in life I go ...
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MrSwanley1 year ago (edited)
+anyalake I am here trying to share ideas with other people who are interested in making fudge. You seem to be intent on nothing except picking a fight - for no good reason that I can see. Thanks for reminding me about Google: I just used it to mute any further posts from you.
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Fyfy zyzy1 year ago
+MrSwanley I was wondering your calculations include the pot, how much does your pot weigh? Just so I could calculate and get exact results every time but with using my pot weight. Thank you for sharing what you have discovered.
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MrSwanley1 year ago (edited)
+Fyfy zyzy The weights I gave don't include the pot, that's why I say (+pot) beside them. They are just the sum of the weights of the recipe ingredients, before and after removing water. Add the weight of your own pot to both.
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Sam LSD1 year ago
thanks for that scientific calculation about moisture content.
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Zilliz 0002 months ago
MrSwanley or....you could just use a candy thermometer! !
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ferociousgumby20 hours ago
Woah!
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FUDGE WARS, ROUND 2!: I just perused a few more fudge recipes on YouTube, and you wouldn't believe who popped up in the comments, giving everyone even more grief about the sacred science of fudge-making. Some poor lady, obviously just trying to be helpful, posted a conversion from British weight measurement to the standard North American dry measure system (cups instead of ounces/mls). And once again, the Fudge Grinch popped up. . . 

Abigail Skelton2 years ago
FOR EVERYONE IN AMERICA, HERE ARE THE INGREDIENTS: 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp butter 2 cups brown sugar 1/2 cup milk about 1 2/3 cup sweetened condensed milk what recipe should I convert next?
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Abigail Skelton2 years ago
+thecraftyzebra Your welcome! Any suggestions for another recipe to convert?
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MrSwanley2 years ago
+the wild one I hate it when people use liquid volumetric measures for solids such as butter, and things with variable density, such as sugar. Even in America I'd have thought people would want to use sensible, repeatable measures. So, no more conversions please.
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Sheree Hyde1 year ago
+the wild one Thank you for converting this for us in the US! Love these recipes! Please do caramel tarts!

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Sheree Hyde1 year ago
+MrSwanley Speak for yourself only. I appreciate the conversions!
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Tabitha Crouse1 year ago
Thank you so much! That is extremely helpful!
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E Winter1 year ago
I know right. mrswanley has a lot of nerve speaking for everyone. Needs to mind his business if the conversations aren't useful for him.
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Melatina771 year ago (edited)
Great tasting fudge and easy to make!
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MrSwanley1 year ago
+E Winter It would help if you learned to speak and interpret English before making a fool of yourself. I clearly said "_I_ hate it", not "_we_ hate it", i.e. at no time did I claim to speak for anyone except myself. And I stand by what I said, which most people with a brain will recognize as common sense.
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Woahhh!!

Melania hates Donald (TWICE!)

The slap seen around the world. . . 

. . . and the OTHER slap seen around the world. 
Respect for the First Lady is growing by leaps and bounds.

Cats that look like Donald Trump

And now, by popular demand. . . (which I'm still waiting for), my gallery of Cats That Look Like Donald Trump. This was created to fulfill a need: when I looked up Google images of cats resembling Trump, there were lots of them, but they were most unsatisfactory: just pictures of cats with messy red wigs sitting on their heads like bird's nests. That is NOT what it means to look like Donald Trump! It's more than orange hair - it's bombast. It's a certain repugnant attitude. I do apologize profusely to the cats. These are but fleeting facial expressions caught in a moment of peevishness. With Trump, the obnoxiousness is forever.

Bye-bye, ASSHOLE!

(Note: these videos were made last summer. Thus the shorts.)

This afternoon my husband and I went to one of our all-time-favourite places: Burnaby Lake, a sort of Shangri-La by the Shore that never fails to calm and thrill me at the same time.

Our favorite spot on Burnaby Lake is called Piper Spit. This is a large expanse of shallow water, a kind of wetlands on the margin of the lake, with a long dock for walking. At the end of it is a sort of round viewing area which gives you a great view of whoever happens to be making an appearance on that day.

We've seen sandhill cranes, dowitchers, wood ducks, Canada geese, blackbirds, cowbirds, mallards, some sort of diving bird we can't categorize, and probably a few dozen more species that move so fast or hide so well that we can't make them out.

The red-winged blackbirds, though - they are very special to me, ever since I realized that they will, when the mood strikes them, fly down and eat right out of your hand. As a little girl I would have fallen over with ecstasy at this, as I was always chasing after wild birds and never catching them. Someone had told me that if I put salt on their tail they would sit still for me, but somehow it never worked.

Today, the blackbirds were skittish and uncooperative. That was fine, because birds have a sort of group mood (like humans, who are also flock animals, though far less intelligent and perceptive). You see mostly juveniles who were born in the spring at this time of year, and they're wisely mistrustful of humans. The great gorgeous mature males seem to have no fear. More than once, I have had a blackbird in each hand, with other blackbirds trying to dislodge them. But for some reason, today the bold birds had taken off to parts unknown.

I had the seeds in my hand, I could HEAR the birds make that lovely "squinge" sound that just seems to open up Paradise, I could see them flitting about in the tree tops. I walked back and forth for a long time with my hand held out, and probably looked a bit foolish. But they weren't coming down. Only two weeks ago I'd had a juvenile male eating out of my hand. Oh well. I was about to give up on the whole thing, when.

Where.

Did.

This.

Guy.

Come.

From.

This was a "type", not a person. Big, husky, moustached. His belly seemed determined to take up more than its allotted amount of space. It was taking up a separate universe. He seemed "Important" in some obscure, overinflated way (in other words, FAT), like an unofficial Park Guide or Ranger Smith-type. I could almost see his Captain Marvel badge beneath his sagging sweats.

He walked up behind me and just stood there, freaking me out.

"No. No. No. They like black oil sunflower seeds." That was the first thing he said to me. This guy didn't say "hello" or tell me his name. Not even a friendly wave. Maybe his name was They Like Black Oil Sunflower Seeds, but it didn't seem very likely. It seemed more likely that his opening line was advice, based on the fact that I obviously didn't know what the hell I was doing and desperately needed him to set me straight.

"You gotta get some black oil sunflower seeds. You should get rid of that stuff you're trying to feed them, they won't take it." (They had "taken" it a dozen times, eagerly, in the past.) "Or you can maybe try picking some of the sunflower seeds out of that stuff you have. No, I mean right away, do it now! Try it!" Feeling hypnotized by his mediocrity, I actually made a feeble effort to pick out a few sunflower seeds before thinking, screw you.

"That guy is super-friendly" (pointing to one of the more shy birds in a treetop, one that was basically indistinguishable from all the others. In other words: if that bird is 'super-friendly', and I am not - unlike every other bird-lover on the planet - attracting him, I am either innately repellent to blackbirds or just so inept that any bird worth its salt would stay away from me and my wormy seeds.) The way he said it, "super-friendly", had a funny kind of imperative inflection: 'I told you not to do that!", like a weird sort of accusation.

His parting shot was, "Don't shake your hand" (I had always found that sifting the seeds a little made them more visible and brought them down more readily). "Don't make those noises either." Oh! So bird noises don't attract birds. That's why people ALWAYS whistle and make bird noises to birds.

They're wrong.

Do you know, never once did I ask for any sort of advice from this guy? He never even gave me his name. He just walked right up to me out of nowhere, Mr. Learned and Omniscient Outdoorsman Who Knows A Hell of a Lot More About Blackbirds Than I Do, and just merrily said, "you're doing it wrong, you're doing it wrong, you're doing it wrong" - and, moreover, "I know how to do it right, and now I'm going to tell you how so you can stop making a complete fool of yourself."

I didn't fully realize I was a victim of mansplaining until I got in the car. On the way home I began to boil. "I wish that son-of-a-bitch could have SEEN me that day in August when I had a large male blackbird on EACH HAND, and then a female blackbird intercepted and knocked one of the males off. I wish that son-of-a-bitch knew that I've been attracting and feeding blackbirds out of my hand since the first day I came here! I wish that son-of-a-bitch knew he had the WRONG BLACKBIRD when he said 'that guy's super-friendly'. It could have been any blackbird. In fact, it WAS just any blackbird. He probably knew that and did it just to shame me and make me feel like a loser!"

Asshole!

I think he was a little bit surprised that I didn't thank him. I think he was a little bit surprised that I didn't clasp my hands beside my face and say, "Ohhhhhhhhh, Mr. Blackbird Expert! THANK you for saving my afternoon by pointing out all my mistakes to me and saving me from my own obvious helplessness and inadequacy.  And here I didn't even have to ask!"

My only consolation is that I know from the pit of my stomach that this creep has NEVER fed two, no, THREE blackbirds at the same time, has probably never even fed ONE. He has probably spent his life walking up to people just to point out how inept they are and setting them straight.

No! Not walking up to people. Walking up to women!

Because no guy would ever take the shit I took from this pompous idiot. Because  he does not even walk UP to men like that - just women - weak little, simpering little, non-blackbird-feeding women. He probably walked away swelling with self-importance and satisfaction and felt he'd done his fucking duty for the day.

I would say I hope I never see him again, but no. I hope I see him again. I hope I see him when I have two blackbirds on each hand, and one on my shoulder, looking like St. Francis of Fucking Assisi.
But by then he will have conveniently forgotten who I am - or, worse, he'll think to himself,: hmmmmmmmm! She must have taken my advice!

(Please note. All videos and gifs on this post are of ME with BLACKBIRDS. Super-friendly, aren't they?)

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

Jian Ghomeshi, serial gropist

Right now, this is about all I can say about that narcissistic self-proclaimed Persian Prince, Jian Ghomeshi, a. k. a. the serial gropist and head-puncher who is now relegated to disgraced exile in - where IS he now, anyway? Whose bed is he hiding under - or in? And an even bigger dilemma: who'll host the Gillers this year? Find somebody stubbly and full of faux-hipster self-importance, quick!

Dear God - they've cancelled his new book, Why I Punch Women's Heads and Other Hobbies of the Hippest Man in Canada! What to do?

And they've cancelled this too, I'd imagine. Bad week for him. Jianny get angry, Jianny get mad! But that's not all. Somebody took a crowbar to his star on the very small and insignificant Canadian Sort-of Walk of Fame (But We're Sorry). They couldn't get it up, I mean out, so somebody had to use a jackhammer. His jilted ex-girlfriend was quoted as saying, "I wish they'd use it on his head."

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA