Drop Fudge - cooking recipe

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter
3 1/2 tablespoons cocoa
1/2 teaspoon cornstarch
1 (12 ounce) can evaporated milk
4 cups sugar
3/4 cup peanut butter
3 teaspoons vanilla

Preparation

Lay out sheets of waxed paper or line mini muffins pans with foil liners. It tends to stick to the thinner paper liners.
Melt the butter in a large sauce pot.
Sift in the cocoa and cornstarch.
Stir.
Add the 1 can evaporated milk.
Stir.
It will look speckled-that's ok.
Bring to a boil, stirring so it doesn't burn.
Add 4 cups sugar-all at once.
Return to a full roiling boil-it will look foamy.
Boil approximately 5 minutes.
While it is boiling , get a small cup and put some ice and cold water into it.
After the 5 minutes drop in a little blob of fudge into the cup .
It will form a soft ball.
If it just disintegrates, it needs cooked a little longer.
DO NOT go by the candy thermometer soft ball stage-it is too hard.
Remove from heat and allow to cool 5-10 minutes.
Add the peanut butter and vanilla.
Stir until it starts to thicken and looses it's shine.
Be careful-it will still be very hot!
I like to use my cookie scooper for this part but you can also use 2 spoons-using 1 to scoop and the other 1 to push the fudge off of the first spoon.
Quickly, either scoop the hot fudge into the lined mini muffin tins or drop onto wax paper. Or you can do both if you don't have enough mini muffin pans. lol.
You need to work quickly b/c it sets up fast once you add the peanut butter and vanilla.
Cool completely.
Store in an airtight container to keep it fresh.
If your house is on the warm side you can also keep it in the fridge to keep it from getting too soft.