One Can Of Sweetened Condensed Milk Is The Start To This Classic Old-School Dessert

An ordinary can of sweetened condensed milk can morph into anything from key lime pie to homemade ice cream, custard, tres leches cake, and endless other modern deserts. But it's also the starting point for an old-school confection with a big bite of nostalgia. Combined with just a handful of ingredients, sweetened condensed milk becomes peanut butter fudge — specifically, Tasting Table's old-fashioned peanut butter fudge recipe.

This recipe keeps things simple, with no oven or stovetop burners involved, only your microwave oven and a good bit of stirring. Along with one 14-ounce can of sweetened condensed milk, the fudge calls for creamy peanut butter, white chocolate chips, vanilla extract, and a little salt. It's easy enough to turn condensed milk into this fudge even for inexperienced cooks, and it makes for a casual dessert ideal for potlucks and cookouts.

Instead of following a traditional candy-making process with cooked sugar and candy thermometers, this version gets its rich texture by combining the trio of premade ingredients. The white chocolate and peanut butter get melted separately in the microwave, then combined before the condensed milk, vanilla, and salt join the party. From there, the mixture is spread into a pan and allowed to set at room temperature for about two hours before cutting into squares. The versatility of sweetened condensed milk is a big component of this recipe well as many others in our collection of 32 recipes that give condensed milk the spotlight.  

This fudge is sweet with a pronounced peanut butter flavor, and the salt gives a slightly savory counterpoint to all that sweetness. But if you'd like extra textures, flavors, or visual appeal in your old-school fudge, then toppings or stir-ins are an easy, tasty way to go. 

You can drizzle extra melted peanut butter over the top and add chopped white chocolate bits as we did — but you can also mix and match to your heart's content, making each batch a little different. Chopped roasted peanuts add crunch while accentuating the existing peanut flavor. Or a scattering of dark chocolate chips, crushed pretzels, or even chopped peanut butter cups push this nostalgia-laden fudge into experimental territory. For a peanut-butter-and-jelly spin, you could also swirl a small amount of strawberry or raspberry jam or jelly across the top before the fudge fully sets. Feel free to give it your own spin. To get a quick overview of making Tasting Table's original old-fashioned peanut butter fudge, check out this short video: