Didi taught this recipe to Helen who has churned out a fair bit of it over the years.
Method
Add evaporated milk and the butter to heavy based saucepan (thinning largish casserole) and stir til butter melted.
Add sugar.
Stir on low/med heat til every grain is dissolved. Scrape side to make sure no grains remain (they can set up a crystallisation domino chain if they do – and you don’t want that = gritty).
Once all sugar definitely dissolved, raise heat a bit.
Stir constantly, til soft ball (soft ball test = get large glass of cold water. Drop bit of mixture off spoon into glass of water. It should remain as a … soft ball. If it doesn’t remain as a ball, keep boiling and stirring. If it is a ball then stop – you need no more cooking.
Remove from heat.
Add flavouring. Eg vanilla, cherries, nuts, rum etc. Beat with hand beater. Be very careful not to flick hot mixture.
Do not taste it. You will injure tongue.
Pour in lightly greased dish
Leave to cool. Slice up when nearly cool.
Ingredients
1 tin evaporated milk (not condensed milk)
1 1kg bag sugar
1 250g butter
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