Try This Festive Two-Tone Eggnog Fudge With A Twist

Holiday kitchens run on memory, spice, and a dash of chaos—and this two-tone eggnog fudge doubles as a smart, shareable edible. I walk you through a glossy Food & Drink magazine inspiration and show how to make it real at home: a creamy eggnog base with vanilla, nutmeg, and cinnamon, topped by a pink, fruit-forward layer kissed with rum. I share the practical steps, infusion choices, and the exact mistakes that turned my glass-top stove into a smoke machine.

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Chapters

• 4:48 Welcome And Holiday Mindset
• 7:15 Gratitude, Community, And Time
• 10:35 Stoner Trivia And Live Show Idea
• 14:32 First High Story And Oregano Myth
• 17:51 Why Fudge For The Holidays
• 20:56 LCBO, Food & Drink, And Inspiration

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 3:14

What happens when you take a love of food, a passion for culture, and a deep knowledge of cannabis, and you toss them all into one bowl? You get by me the podcast that explores the intersection of food, culture, and cannabis and helps cooks make great edibles at home. I am your host, Margaret, certified ganger, TCI certified cannabis educator, and I believe your kitchen is the best dispensary you'll ever have. Together, we'll explore the stories, the science, and the sheer joy of making safe, effective, and unforgettable edibles at home. So preheat your oven and get ready for a great episode. Let's dive in. Friends, today we are making something special. And because it's getting a little bit closer to the holidays, to Yule Tide, or to however you want to celebrate it, or however you are celebrating it, I hope you get to spend some time with friends and family and people that you care about and you can and you have good food. Those are the things I hope for you. These are the things, forget the presents and all that other kind of stuff. We don't really need that kind of thing in our hyper-consumerist culture. It's really about the friends and family. I think that's one of the things in Canada we celebrate Thanksgiving just like they do in the US of A, even though in Canada we celebrate it a month ahead of time. And honestly, I love Thanksgiving because it is the excuse to spend time with people that you care about and you eat good food, but there's none of the pressure of the gift giving. Do I like gift giving? Yes, I do. I can't say that I don't. I like to make a lot of my gifts or try and find thoughtful ones, but because I'm trying to be a little less consumerist, those in my immediate circle are just trying to make thrift as opposed to buy wherever possible. So, you know, just doing it a little bit differently because I don't know. I think you know what I mean. Anyway, if you're joining me for the first time today, you're in for a tasty one. And if you've been here for a while, I appreciate you. I appreciate anybody who shares their time and energy with me because everywhere we look, people are looking to take our time and energy. And we sometimes feel so fatigued. It feels like everywhere we turn, someone's trying to like, someone's trying to steal our time and energy. I mean, I'm on social media, I know what it's like. I but anyway, I know I know how meaningful it is. And so I hope that you enjoy this podcast and I hope you've got value out of it. And I appreciate you. I thought today, before we get into it, I haven't done it in a while, Stone or Trivia raced 420, because I've actually been thinking about doing a live show around Stoner Trivia, and I wondered what y'all would think about that. I thought it would be kind of fun. I could occasionally invite a guest, just do some fun trivia. I don't know, keep it low-key, keep it fun. I'd probably do it so that it streams to like uh YouTube or something like that. Just thinking about it, but I would love to know what you think. Because obviously that's one of the reasons I started the Bite Me Cannabis Club as well, is because I can have a two-way conversation with the people who are a part of my community, who are in my orbit, who are Bite Me advocates and people who love cannabis and love edibles and love learning new things and are curious. Without further ado, I shall choose a card from the deck. I'm gonna look at it right now. It's a slang card. Which common kitchen spice is sometimes sold as marijuana to inexperienced stoners? Is it oregano, garlic, dried spinach, or paprika? Well, I think you'd have to be awfully inexperienced to think paprika is the answer. But if you guessed oregano, you would be correct. Ding ding ding ding. And here's a fun story for you all. The first time I ever smoked cannabis, I was probably about 15 years old. And I was full on in my rebellious stage. And I had a friend who was also curious about trying cannabis. And we reached out to somebody we knew at our high school and said, hey, this is what we're looking for. And he hooked us up, and that same friend came and stayed at my house, which ironically is the house I'm living at right now with my father. It's a little bit weird. We moved to that house when I was about 12. I lived there until I was 19, and then here I am almost 30 years later, having moved back in. But that's another story for another day. We snuck out of the house late at night after everybody had gone to bed, which I can tell you was a nerve-wracking experience because the floors, even then, were so damn creaky. It felt like every mood you made, every move, every step you took just had a deafening squeak or creak in the floorboard. I'm pretty sure we did sneak out the front door. I do recall actually many times jumping out my bedroom window, but on that particular night we snuck out via a door. There's a school right next door to the house where I live, and we went up to the schoolyard, sat on the swings. We had already rolled up our joint and we smoked it. Now I have very little recollection as to what this weed looked like. I'm sure if I was to see it now, I'd probably be terribly disappointed. I mean, I've seen a lot of really great weed as a certified gangier and been able to have those discussions about what makes quality weed. My friends seemed to get really high. I did not. I mean, looking back now, did I even inhale? Who knows? I think I had tried cigarettes at that point, but I do remember some kid telling me I wasn't inhaling, so maybe I wasn't when I've when I was smoking cigarettes anyway. Yeah, she said she got really high and I didn't feel anything. Now I have, of course, since learned that that is not an uncommon experience the first time around. I don't know why that happens sometimes, that you don't get high on the first time, but did we smoke a cannabis or did we smoke oregano? That is a question I've asked myself many times over the years. I sometimes wonder if it was a oregano. I mean, my friend could have just been acting high, you know, placebo and all. Anyway, that was the trivia question for the day. And yeah, let me know. Would you be interested in a stoner trivia? Like a live stream exploring it. But today we're talking fudge. And why fudge? Because it's an easy festive thing to make for the holidays, and they are creeping up here. If you're listening to this, at the time of this release, we are in the final month of 2025, and people are rushing to and fro to get ready for the holidays. And oftentimes you want to make some good stuff, not include edibles. And I'm just looking through. Uh, and I saw this, I saw this recipe where I live. I live in Ontario, Canada, and where I live, we have what are called LCBOs, which is the liquor control board of Ontario, and that controls all alcohol sales in the province of Ontario. And fun fact, the LCBO is the largest buyer of alcohol in the entire world. Now, recently, our premiere did open up alcohol sales to convenience stores and gas stations, and pretty much most grocery stores, it was in limited grocery stores before that. They kind of had to be in like standalone stores or something inside the grocery stores, but now you can pretty much buy it anywhere. But I will tell you that I still go back to the LCBOs myself because one, taxes are included in the price, which, you know, sometimes is good, sometimes is bad, but you at least you know what you're paying when you get to the till. And two, the staff are generally pretty knowledgeable if you have questions. And three, the selection. You're not gonna I love wine, and you're not gonna be able to get the same selection of wine at a convenience store as you're gonna get at an LCBO. I mean, I think we could probably all agree about that. There's just no difference. And I've often I've bought, I think, a bottle of wine at a gas station once. Uh, I was not impressed with the selection. And yeah. But anyway, the LCBO uh puts out a magazine called Food and Drink. And it's actually a pretty great magazine with a ton of delicious recipes in it that they'll pair with different types of booze. But of course, you can take any recipe from any magazine, even if it's from an alcohol retailer, and make it weed. And that's what we're going to be doing today. I have done fudge before on this show because, again, like I said, it's pretty easy to make. It keeps well, it's great for gifting. But this one was a two-tone eggnog fudge in the holiday edition of Food and Drink. And I thought, what a great idea. It's a two-tone, as I said, a two-tone eggnog fudge, and I love eggnog. I make eggnog every Christmas, and I have for several years now, because if I'm gonna drink the stuff that is so sugary and so fatty, I might as well just make my own. And then that way I'm not like buying multiple cartons of it because I do see it in the grocery store. Honestly, the homemade stuff is the bomb.com. And oh my god, I just aged myself with that a little bit too. But with that, you can infuse it if you choose. I don't typically infuse my eggnog. A lot of people put booze in it, of course. I often leave it out because a lot of the people I'm hanging out with don't want boozy eggnog, and then but you but you can always mix it in after if you want. In any case, I love eggnog and the flavor of it. It's pretty easy to make. So it's a treat once a year. I'll be doing it again this year, but in the meanwhile, I have this two-tone eggnog fudge, and it was really pretty because it was sort of like a cream-colored eggnog or a cream-colored fudge with a pink layer on top. So essentially, you're making two fudges for this particular recipe. As it says here, creamy and lightly spiced with a hint of fruitiness. This two-tone fudge adds a fun bite-sized treat to any cookie tin or festive dessert table. Customize the flavors by swapping out the rum for your favorite spirit and replace the pomegranate preserves with a different variety like seedless raspberry or strawberry jam. I did add rum to it because I have rum in my cupboard and I had to open it. It was still had like the plastic seal on it. I've had that rum in my cupboard for probably about three years, maybe longer. I know I moved it here, closed from my old house, so that's how often I drink rum. So I thought, why not use it? But this could also be your vehicle for infusion because the the eggnog fudge takes sugar, heavy cream, light corn syrup, salt, vanilla extract, uh ground nutmeg, and cinnamon. I guess the rum goes in the other one. You could also infuse the corn syrup. I've infused corn syrup as well, and that's an easy way to do it. And then the pomegranate rum fudge, which is the pink layer that goes on top of the other fudge, is sugar, heavy cream. I think I mentioned that in the first one. Light corn syrup, white rum, salt, and pomegranate preserves. Now, these are all pretty basic ingredients. If you're doing any kind of cooking this time of year, you may or may not have all of these things on hand. I had everything except I probably had to go out and get some more heavy cream. But the two fudges are almost very similar. I will warn you, this is a ton of sugar. There's a lot of sugar in this fudge, but it does make a pretty big tray, and you can cut it into pretty small pieces. But it calls for sugar and it calls for corn syrup. Now, I also did not go out and buy pomegranate reserve preserves because when I hear pomegranate in a preserve, all I can think is chuck ching, and I probably have to go to some specialty store to get it. And guess what was already in the fridge? Raspberry jam. Was it was it uh seedless as it suggested? I'm not really sure, but I didn't really notice that anyway. I just used it, whatever. It worked, it was totally fine. It still gave the same color. So if you have a strawberry or raspberry preserve in your in your fridge, just use that. Unless you want to go out and do the real deal as this thing suggests. I made this thing twice, and I'll tell you why. And I'm glad that I didn't infuse it the first time because I have learned my lesson, even though I've made fudge lots of times before. This one was a little bit different. And you put basically it's one of the reasons why it's so easy is you put all the ingredients in a pot. So you do the first eggnog fudge and then the pomegranate rum fudge. You put all the ingredients in a pot, you let it get hot, you put a candy thermometer in the pot, you want to bring it up to a certain temperature. Well, the magazine said to use a big pot. What it didn't tell me was how much these ingredients would start to bubble up. And what ended up happening is I didn't use a big enough pot. And everything bubbled up on both the fudges I made that day. They bubbled up so much that it started to overflow, and I had to take it off the heat before it reached the soft ball temperature of what was it here, 240 degrees. And so it never did quite set right. I did both fudges, it happened with both because I still didn't use a big enough pot. You need a big pot, okay? That's all I'm saying, because not only did it start to overflow, but I have like this type of stove that I have at my house is one of those glass top stoves. So as soon as it started to bubble over onto the hot burner, it started to burn and create a whole bunch of smoke, and I had open the windows. It was just a bit of a disaster. So I poured it into the pan because I already had a prepared pan, and then I did it with the second one. And when I poured in the pomegranate rum eggnog fudge, instead of it staying on top and creating a nice layer, it just kind of mixed right into the rest of the fudge, which really wasn't the intended effect. So you might be saying, but Margaret, what did you do with all that sugary mess? Because admittedly, I was like super disappointed that it happened like this. Why didn't they tell me to use a much bigger pot? Because what does it say here? You basically, let's say for the eggnog fudge, you stir in your sugar, cream, corn syrup, salt in a large pot until combined, set over medium high heat, cook without stirring until it reaches the soft reaches the softball stage at 240 degrees. Takes about 10 to 12 minutes, and then you remove from heat and set aside to cool for a little bit before you pour it into your prepared pan. First of all, I'm not really sure, after having done this twice, I'm not really sure why you have to remove it the heat and let it cool for that long because you, if you let it cool for too long, it's gonna start to set right in the pot. You could probably put the eggnog fudge right in the pan right away. It also had you like using a stick blender to blend it before you put it into the prepared pan, and it was going to make it a little bit lighter. I didn't really feel like that that was necessary. And it didn't really actually whip the mixture until the color has slightly lightened and the texture is creamy. Honestly, you could skip that step. In my personal opinion, it didn't make any difference except to make more of a mess and make another little appliance that I had to clean afterwards. So you could probably just pour it into the pan. Now you're gonna have to wait a little bit and let the pomegranate rum fudge cool a little bit because you're going to make it afterwards in a much larger pot than you might expect. And then you need the first fudge to be set just a little bit so that it will stay on top and not mixed in the first time. So fucking this up is really going to waste a lot of ingredients, which is what I did. So I did a little Googling because when I did take the fudge, you're supposed to let it set for a couple hours and then put it in the fridge for about eight hours. And when I pulled it out the next day, it was super soft. You could basically put your finger through it, and I knew it had not set. I had a feeling it wouldn't, it didn't anyway, but it did not. I actually re-melted it, brought it to the correct temperature, and then re-and then put it back in another prepared pan. So I did fix it. This particular one, because I didn't get it to a high enough temperature, I was able to fix. So sometimes you can fix your mistakes. In this particular instance, it worked out. And if you do run into troubles, you can always ask around, join the Bite Me Cannabis Club, ask questions there of real people who are out there making edibles and see if you can fix something. Because again, like I mentioned, it uses quite a bit of ingredients. Like the eggnog fudge, it was it was a total like four and a half cups of sugar for the entire thing. It was also over two cups of heavy cream, corn syrup. I mean, and of course, if you're infusing it as well, you want to be able to salvage things when you can. Now, my second attempt worked out much better. I used a much bigger pot, like way bigger, no problems at all. Brought it to temperature, put it in the pan, made the second batch, again, in a much larger pot than I had the first time because the pomegranate rum fudge actually uses less ingredients. It's a much smaller layer. That all worked well. I didn't bother blending that one this time because it felt really felt unnecessary. Says it makes about 64 pieces. I would agree. I did cut them into pretty small pieces. So if you are having company over, if you want to leave something out for Santa, if you want to find a fun way to medicate yourself with a small bite of something, because like I said, these are very sugary, then this fudge is pretty easy to make if you don't mess it up the first way like I did. Will you be trying this out? I would love to hear it. If you have any variations on fudge that you love, let me know. I'd love to hear that kind of thing too. And what kind of recipe would you like to see me do for the new year? I've done all kinds of things recently, and actually, it wasn't that long ago that I was talking with somebody. We're talking about food as often comes up, and I remembered a Haitian chicken stew that I made for the podcast a little while ago. I don't have a date on this thing, but I was craving it the other day because it is spicy and delicious and nourishing. I'm gonna link that in the show notes if you want something that's more savory as opposed to sweet to sort of temper this. It's not necessarily a holiday recipe, but it is just warm and nourishing and incredible. And it came from the chef Gregory Gordette. Ugh, it was so good. Just remember there's all kinds of recipes over on BitemePodcast.com. We also have a regular recipe swap at the Bite Me Cannabis Club where I always put recipes, and so do other members. So if you need some inspiration. With that, my friends, I'm your host, Margaret. And until next week, stay high.