Two weeks ago, my husband and I moved into a new apartment. I went through all our kitchen items, taking stock of this and that: gelatin sheets, various nuts, all kinds of salt, spices up the wazoo, and of course, my trusty box of chocolate. I did a good deal of tossing, but the hoarder in me hates to waste perfectly good food, especially bits of chocolate that can be thrown into cookies, fruit breads, and muffins.
I noticed I had an abundance of white chocolate, peanut butter, hazelnuts, and big hunks of Gianduja. I brought them out onto the counter, handling each one, and asked myself the Marie Kondo question: Does this item give me pleasure? Yes, yes, yes.
If you’ve never had Gianduja, it’s a heady combo of chocolate and hazelnut paste. It comes in baking blocks, and is used as a flavor for bon bons and chocolate bars. It tastes very much like Nutella.
With the peanut butter on the cusp of expiration, I wondered what I might test out and thought of a recent idea my friend Rachel Simons, co-founder of Seed and Mill (a New York-based tahini and halvah company) had about making a rocky road candy using tahini, marshmallows, and pretzels.
I thought I could use the same approach to fudge using a nut butter. I melted the white chocolate over a double boiler and whisked in a whole container of creamy peanut butter. I poured that onto a wax paper–lined lasagna pan. Cleaning the bowl out, I put the Gianduja in the double boiler, which melts super quickly, and swirled that into the white chocolate-peanut butter mixture. I grabbed a few handfuls of pre-toasted hazelnuts and cacao nibs from the freezer and scattered those on top. After an hour or so in the fridge, the mess solidified into a decadent, totally addictive candy.
The best part about this recipe is that you can make it in even less time than I did, just by adding the Gianduja—or, if you don’t have it, dark chocolate with as many swirls of Nutella as you please—straight to the white chocolate–peanut butter mixture. It’s truly the ultimate pantry fudge, and takes about 10 minutes to make.
Feel free to get creative and use combinations of things from your own pantry.
| 24 | ounces white chocolate chips |
| 16 | ounces creamy peanut butter (I use Jif or Skippy) |
| 8.5 | ounces Gianduja or dark chocolate |
| 1 | cup toasted, peeled hazelnuts |
| 1/4 | cup cacao nibs |
| 24 | ounces white chocolate chips |
| 16 | ounces creamy peanut butter (I use Jif or Skippy) |
| 8.5 | ounces Gianduja or dark chocolate |
| 1 | cup toasted, peeled hazelnuts |
| 1/4 | cup cacao nibs |
What's your favorite kind of fudge? Tell us in the comments below.
Written by: Danielle Rehfeld Colen
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