Y’all, Christmas is less than a week away, and I haven’t baked a single cookie all month! I am so sorry for the woeful lack of recipes around here lately, and I promise I will make it up to you in the next few days. I decided to start today with pumpkin fudge, because it is delicious, seasonal and takes much less time and effort than many cookie recipes. Plus, it doesn’t involve the oven, so you can make it WHILE you’re baking cookies.

If you’re anything like me, you associate fudge with chocolate overload (not that that’s a bad thing). This fudge is different in that it doesn’t involve any regular chocolate — just some white chocolate chips. And it doesn’t really taste like white chocolate, either, which is definitely positive. Instead, it’s the velvety texture of fudge with the flavor of (very) sweet, spiced pumpkin. Almost like pumpkin spice syrup in fudge form, with a sprinkling of toasted pecans.

I first made this recipe several years ago, back when most of my baking involved a cake mix or the recipe on the back of a package of chocolate chips (not that there’s anything wrong with THAT, either). I didn’t have a candy thermometer then, so I didn’t use one. The result was tasty but kind of a flaky texture that wasn’t quite right.

This time, the texture is much better. So, please do use a candy thermometer. You can probably get one for about $5 at the grocery store, just make sure it’s a candy thermometer and not a meat thermometer — those don’t always go to high enough temperatures.

That said, besides the effort of buying or finding your candy thermometer, all you have to do for this fudge is dump some ingredients in a pot and stir. As an added bonus, it doesn’t make a huge mess. Sounds like a perfect holiday gift to me!

Pumpkin-pecan fudge (Adapted from Southern Living, makes about 3 pounds, or enough for about 25 cubes)
1 cup chopped pecans
3/4 cup melted butter
3 cups sugar
2/3 cup evaporated milk (2% is fine, but whole is probably better)
1/2 cup canned pumpkin
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1 (12-ounce) package white chocolate chips
1 (7-ounce) jar marshmallow crème
1 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Toast the pecans, either on a sheet pan in a 350F oven for 10-15 minutes or in a skillet for a few minutes over medium heat. Either way, make sure you stir or shake the pecans once or twice during the cooking process to prevent burning. You’ll know they’re done when they start to smell nutty and look a bit darker.

Chop nuts, if you haven’t already, and set aside. Line a 9×9-inch or 8×8-inch square baking dish with two sheets of aluminum foil, one in each direction, so there is a bit of foil hanging over each side of the baking dish. Grease the foil with a little vegetable oil or butter (I forgot and my fudge still came off the foil pretty well). Open the bag of white chocolate chips and the jar of marshmallow creme, and make sure you have the vanilla handy.

Melt the butter, then pour it into a medium (3 1/2 quart or larger) saucepan with the sugar, evaporated milk, pumpkin, corn syrup and pumpkin pie spice. Clip you candy thermometer to the side of the pan so it isn’t touching the bottom, then turn heat to medium and stir constantly for about 15 minutes — until the mixture reaches 234F, or the “soft-ball stage” on your thermometer. The mixture will come to a boil and then keep increasing in temperature very slowly until it reaches this stage, but keep stirring and don’t take it off the heat early. You can turn the heat up a little if it’s taking forever.

Once mixture reaches 234F/the soft-ball stage (hehe), remove the pan from the heat and immediately stir in the toasted pecans, white chocolate, marshmallow creme and vanilla until the mixture is well blended. Quickly spoon or pour the hot fudge into the prepared pan and allow to cool at least two hours before cutting and serving.

(I let my fudge set overnight, then cut it and stored it in the fridge in an air-tight plastic container. I don’t know if you HAVE to store it in the fridge, but it seems like a good idea.)