Recipe: Customisable Chocolate and Brown Butter Fudge

Some people like sweet and salty, some people prefer nuts, or fruit, or spices. Everyone has a different flavour combo they adore so instead of deciding on the flavours for you, I've put together a really delicious, simple recipe for chocolate fudge and included some flavour combinations to try with it instead that were recommended to us by you on Instagram, which makes it perfect for tailoring to your recipient's favourite flavour combinations.

For my trials, I made white chocolate and cardamom, and dark chocolate and sea salt; both delicious

I tend to cut the cubes quite small because it's so rich, so this recipe should yield 64 small chunks of fudge, or 36 larger bites, depending on how you cut it.

Some flavour combinations to try:

• White Chocolate: cardamom (I used 8 pods, toasted and ground), ginger, geranium, miso, pecans, dried cranberries

• Milk Chocolate: sea salt, almonds, hazelnut, rose

• Dark Chocolate: sea salt, orange, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, chipotle, dried raspberries or cherries, rosemary, salted pretzels

You'll need:

• 450g of a chocolate of your choice: the recipe will work with white, milk and dark but dark will set more firmly than the other two.

• A tin of condensed milk (397g)

• 70g butter

• Good pinch of salt (roughly 4g)

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Here's how you make it:

Prepare a baking tin (an 8 x 8 inch brownie sized tin works great) by lining it with greaseproof paper for later, then start by browning your butter. Pop your butter into a saucepan and melt on a medium heat. Keep watching it and swirling it around (it'll foam but that's okay!) and in 5 or so minutes you'll see the milk solids turn a nice, caramelly brown colour. When you see that happening, pour the butter into a new dish to stop the browning and if you're using any spices, I'd recommend adding them now to infuse the flavour into the mix more.

Chop your chocolate into smallish chunks and pop into a saucepan and add in your can of condensed milk, your brown butter, vanilla, salt and any extra flavourings you're including too. Pop over a low heat and stir semi-frequently until the chocolate has melted and the mix is uniform in colour. Pour into your prepared baking tin and leave to cool. It'll take about an hour and a half to get firm enough to cut.

Store it in the fridge for up to 2 weeks, or in the freezer for up to a month.

Liked this recipe? Find more Christmas DIY gift ideas here.