Cola fudge

Mmmm, cola fudge.

Sometimes, when I do week-long or weekend courses, I make one or the other caffeine-fudge. If I do that and hand out a small chunk each morning, people stay wide awake instead of dozing off. Sure, I'm a good speaker, trying to keep things interesting, but even I can't keep'em alert for a whole week (or a whole weekend) without that caffeine-sugar-fat jolt.

I got the recipe off Michael Moore's pages - specifically, the "guarana fudge" thing in his formulary (.txt / .pdf).

Being European I've converted measurements to metrics.
And not always having guarana on hand I've made the fudge with various other herbs. If you make a guarana fudge (not a cola fudge), note that the caffeine from guarana stays in the blood for 8 hours... the caffeine from coffee, cola, tea and the like stays for only 4 hours.

Here's the recipe:
4 dl sugar (white, or brown, or Indian, or even honey)
2.5 dl milk (or rice milk, or oat milk - I don't use soy milk, as it's very allergenic)
Bring to a boil, reduce heat, let simmer until 1 drop, dropped into a glass of cold water, stays together to the bottom of the glass. If you let it boil until that drop retains drop shape through that water you can throw your boiled sugarmilk out and start from scratch.

When that drop stays whole you'll have to be fairly fast. If you dally about chances are, your oil'n'herb won't mix with the sugar'n'milk anymore. So, fairly soon after the droptest worked, add
40 g butter (or .4 dl oil)
50 g powdered herb (I've found that 25 g works, most of the time) (I've used guarana, kola, and peppermint. You can also use instant coffee or cocoa (not the sugar-milk-cocoa mixes, just plain black cocoa). You can also use fresh peppermint: if you do, you'll have to chop it to really small bits. One of the times when a blender is a good idea, with fresh herb).

Let simmer until the mix isn't all that liquid anymore: the bottom of the pan stays visible for more than a blink of the eye when you pull a spoon across it.

Pour onto waxed paper, let cool.

Pic: Cola fudge, a tad too runny. If you let it simmer for long enough it'll harden as it cools.
If you didn't it'll stay messy.

Either way, it's delicious. Me, I don't have much of a sweet tooth, so if there's leftovers, I usually give them away.

For lectures I usually go with oat or rice milk and oil, as lots of people are sensitive to dairy, over here: substituting out the milk and butter means that almost everybody can eat'em. Some don't like caffeine, some can't take sugar, some don't do oats. Still: almost everybody, which is more than if I were to include dairy.

And don't do guarana fudge in the afternoon or evening: the caffeine in guarana stays in your blood for double the time of the caffeine in cola, coffee, or tea.