Happy Holidays!

So clearly I’m all about eating (and drinking) healthily.

I also believe it’s very important to treat yourself occasionally.

Deprivation is no way to go.

Believe me.

If you enjoy living off of naked boiled broccoli and bare bones poached salmon, by all means…

But if you’re like me and need a little sugar and alcohol in your life to remain somewhat sane and reasonably pleasant to be around, whip up a batch of chocolatey, peanut buttery fudge with a kick of whiskey.

I don’t even enjoy whiskey.

Mix anything with chocolate and peanut butter though, and things change real quick.

Now I’m not telling you to inhale this entire pan solo in one sitting.

It’s pretty rich, and you might feel a little extremely ill.

Instead, savor a piece (or three) and share the rest with your favorite family members, very best friends, lucky coworkers, cool neighbors, your questionable tinder date, or whomever.

(Just not the dog. Fido can’t have chocolate, no matter how hard he tries to convince you otherwise.)

Enough with the idle chit chat.

Let’s dive a little deeper into this whole fudge situation.

First you’re going to gently melt together high quality milk chocolate and dark chocolate with creamy sweetened condensed milk and luxurious heavy whipping cream. Then you’re going to stir in a lovely splash of whiskey, pure vanilla extract, and a bit of salt. Carefully fold in chilled milk chocolate peanut butter cups before pouring your heavenly mixture into an 8×8 pan lined with parchment paper. Before popping your masterpiece into the fridge to chill out, sprinkle some vanilla scented whiskey sugar on top like a culinary boss.

Patience is a virtue.

Be virtuous.

And don’t forget to lick the pot!

P.S. You want to use high quality ingredients here or your fudge will taste like cheap chocolate. Even if you think you like cheap chocolate, you really don’t. Both texture and flavor are important so do it right.

P.P.S. Endangered Species Chocolate is always a good choice, and Newman knows how to do chocolate peanut butter cups the right way. Don’t even think about using leftover Reese’s candy from Halloween. I will personally slap you through the computer screen.

P.P.P.S. Not a fan of alcohol? Skip the vanilla whiskey sugar all together and leave the whiskey out of your fudge. I do not recommend doing such a thing, just saying. At the very least add the vanilla whiskey sugar to half of the fudge… make that three-fourths.

P.P.P.P.S. The original recipe is from Tieghan over on Half Baked Harvest. Her recipes are always amazing! I swapped in dark chocolate for semisweet and used Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey instead of bourbon. She also makes some darn good salads… balance, you know?