To this day, teas and bake sales in church basements make me salivate. Always, my mother’s date squares and fudge were huge hits. Dorothy MacKinnon’s fudge is still regarded, by one and all, as the finest ever made. Dorothy (then Cann) started producing her Cape Breton fudge in the 1930s, in a big draughty house on Whitney Pier, outside of Sydney. (She was fond of saying, “I saw the Titanic sink every day.” It seems, on the hall wall, there was a print of the doomed ship slipping beneath the waves.) The fudge was made from Depression ingredients: margarine, skim milk and sugar. If made with brown sugar, the result was a velvety confection with a molasses-maple flavour. If Mom added cocoa, the batch turned out to be chocolate. I’ve seen sophisticated friends and relatives, who are familiar with the finest Belgium chocolate truffles, stuff purses and pockets with Mom’s chocolate fudge. It had a melt-in-the mouth texture Godiva and Teuscher would kill to obtain. Over the years, she sold hundreds of pounds of fudge at church sales, latterly, at Wychwood, Toronto. Mom is no more, but her fudge remains legendary.
For over 50 years, my sister has tried to duplicate this fudge. She comes very close, maybe, once in five tries. Interestingly, the only person who has, more-or-less, mastered the secret of Mom’s fudge is my niece’s husband, Daniel, an ethics professor with Jewish South African roots who, obviously, has a deft hand and an innate sense of confectionary timing.
Cape Breton Chocolate Fudge
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
⅔ cup milk
1 tbsp margarine
Enough cocoa to make it chocolatey
1 tsp vanilla
Combine the sugar and cocoa together in a sauce pan. Add all the other ingredients except for the vanilla. Melt over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until bubbles appear. Turn down the heat a tad and let it boil away. When the liquid level has dropped a bit, start testing it with a silver spoon, dipped in ice-cold water. Keep testing until the fudge forms a soft ball at the tip of the spoon and does not fall off. Take the pot off the heat and try not to move it more than necessary. Allow it to cool until you can put your hand on the bottom of the pot. Add the vanilla and beat like crazy with a wooden spoon or hand beater until thick. Put in an 8”x 8” cake pan to set. Cut into squares when almost set. Good luck!
I recall a herring dinner at a church in Cape Breton in the days when the only access to Gabarus was by sea or a muddy, rutted road and then a walk-in. I think fondly of blueberry grunt (you eat until you grunt), a Cape Breton specialty, made by my grandmother. It involved sweet dumplings and a sauce made from wild blueberries picked around Louisburg.
Cape Breton Blueberry Grunt
For the sauce:
1 quart blueberries
½ cup white sugar (or to taste)
½ cup water
For the dumplings:
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp shortening
milk
Boil the berries, water and sugar in a large covered saucepan until there is plenty of juice. Sift together: flour, salt, baking powder and 1 tsp sugar. Cut in the butter and shortening. Add enough milk to make a soft biscuit dough. Drop, by tablespoons, into the hot blueberry sauce. Cover tightly. Cook for 15 minutes without peeking. Serve the dumplings with the sauce. Optional: top with cream.
Pray, Eat, Share
After his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus served loaves and fishes. On the night of his betrayal, Jesus broke bread …
Food. Meals. Eating. Where people meet. At the heart of community.
Most of us have special memories of Sunday school picnics, Burns suppers, church socials and, above all, the home-baking served at teas and church-basement bazaars. These continue to be a part of the fabric that is woven into belonging to a Presbyterian congregation.
Through this interactive blog, we invite you to share your church-related food stories. And recipes. This is a contest of sorts, if you want, because more stories and recipes we share, the more we all win.
Bon appétit!
