Homemade Chocolate (Fudge)

Chocolate is a universal indulgence and I love chocolate as much as I love traditional Indian mithai. The same goes for my daughters and son. When they were quite young, I had experimented with the recipe to make it a part of my Diwali mithai repertoire. The "chocolate burfi" as it was known then, was really quite popular with them and their friends who came over to wish us happy diwali.  Recently on a visit to my son's house, I made a batch on his request. Although not as smooth in texture as the store bought bars, this fudge has a lot more flavour and an unmistakable Indian taste.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup All purpose flour - in India, we can use maida
3/4 cup Cocoa powder (you can also replace the powder with bars of your favorite brand)
3 cup sugar
1 can condensed milk or evaporated milk 
3/4 cup butter
1/4 cup roasted and broken nuts (almonds, cashews)
(If evaporated milk or condensed milk is not available then take 1.5 litre of milk and let it boil and evaporate till the volume is 400 ml). In the U.S. one can buy the condensed milk cans from the grocery store.
In a vessel pour evaporated milk+cocoa powder+all purpose flour+sugar. Mix it well with a hand blender to remove lumps. Now in a non stick pan pour this mixture. Keep it on a medium to high flame and start stirring to avoid lumps. After the mixture starts to boil, add butter and continue to stir for 20 minutes then the mixture will turn into a mass.

Stir well to remove all lumps

When it seems like a homogenous mass that's ready for rolling, then take the pan off the flame.

 Ready to roll

 Spread it on a wooden board or a chakala used to roll rotis.
Roll it with the help of a rolling pin and garnish with nuts. When it is cool then with the help of a pizza cutter cut into desired shape and size.
TIPS
If condensed milk is used then reduce the amount of sugar to 2 cup only as the condensed milk being sweet.
Exact timing for switching off the flame is very important, if its too early the chocolate will be too soggy to roll or cut and if it's too late, the ball might become too dry and crumb like.

You can tune the recipe by experimenting with different types of cocoa sources.  The one I used here is the Hershey's cocoa powder.
But there are other chocolate powders out there and you can make it as gourmet or as simple as you like.  I would really like to try the Ghiradelli's cocoa as their chocolate is quite popular in the bay area and I loved the chocolate when I visited their factory in San Francisco.
My daughter claims that Scharffen Berger cocoa is superior and they deserve a mention here.  So here is a small spectrum for you that you can pick from. But if you are in India, you could just buy the Cadbury's Cocoa powder.