When you’re a North Carolina native, you drink soda. Which is always called Coke (which kind of Coke do you want? Oh, Cheerwine/Sprite/Dr Pepper/or whatever).We love our sugary drinks. When my best friend moved to Washington DC, outside of the SunDrop availability zone, she used to come home and load up the trunk with a few flats to get herself through to the next visit!
Therefore, when you have children in North Carolina, and you’re from here too, they are going to naturally love soda. Especially SunDrop (created in nearby Concord, North Carolina) and Cheerwine (created in Salisbury, North Carolina). Now, if you’re not from around here, you should know that Cheerwine is non-alcoholic… but when you’re 9, it’s way more fun to drink it from a wine glass to horrify the visiting adults. It’s a cherry-ish flavored soda that was born in 1917 and known as the “Nectar of North Carolina”. I’m excited to see what they do next year for the 100th anniversary!
ANYWAY, my son fell in love with Cheerwine fudge a couple of years ago at the Southern Christmas Show, discovered at the booth of NC Fudge. He can make the stash last for about a week, but that’s it! This year for my church Homecoming, I decided to figure out how to make it for him and the rest of the church. However, for once, Google and Pinterest failed me–there was nothing out there! And apparently, NC Fudge isn’t sharing their proprietary recipe! So I stepped WAY out of my comfort zone and created a recipe. And guess what? It worked!
Prep: 30 minutes
Total time: An hour or overnight, or whatever.
Makes: a Chinet plate-full
Ingredients:
– 5 oz can evaporated milk
– 1 2/3 cups white sugar
– ½ tsp salt
– 12 large marshmallows
– 12oz bag white chocolate chips
– ¼ cup chopped maraschino cherries
– 2 tbsp Cheerwine
– A couple of drops of red food coloring if you want the Technicolor look, as seen in these photos.
Directions:
- Line an 8×8 pan with tin foil and coat with cooking spray. (I used the butter flavor but couldn’t taste it later.)
- Combine milk, sugar, and salt in a non-stick saucepan and cook over medium heat until it comes to a boil. Do NOT stop stirring or it will burn fast! Trust me.
- Once boiling, stir for 8 minutes non-stop. For real. Did you read instruction #2? DON’T STOP STIRRING.
- Remove from heat and stir in the marshmallows, chocolate chips, cherries, Cheerwine and food coloring, and mix until it’s smooth. (It’s going to look really bad right before you add the Cheerwine-if it’s looking crumbly and dry, you are on track. Once you add the Cheerwine and KEEP STIRRING it will work out-I promise. Well, I promise that it worked for me!)
- Pour into prepared pan and let it cool overnight. Or for an hour or so.
- Cut into serving sizes. I cut mine into ½ inch squares since it’s super sugary and I don’t carry liability insurance for sending people into insulin shock.
That’s it! Fast and easy and very likely to become Christmas gifts for kids’ teachers, so if you’re a teacher reading this, you should let me know right quick if you’re a diabetic.
Enjoy!
PS: Just so you know, we buy and sell homes in Salisbury and Concord all of the time. So, not only do we love their sodas, we love those areas too! Contact us today to discuss YOUR real estate needs. 704-705-7036.
