Chocolate Fudge - another fudge fail

Chocolate Fudge - made February 1, 2012 made from Hallelujah! The Welcome Table by Maya Angelou (book #186)

Do you like your fudge dry, crumbly and/or grainy?  If so, let me make your fudge for you.  Because that's how my last couple of attempts to make fudge have turned out.  I know there are "no-fail" fudge recipes out there that use marshmallow creme and/or evaporated milk to minimize the risk of graininess but I was trying to make "real", old-fashioned fudge the old-school way.  Ha, that was a mistake.

If you've ever read any of the Betsy-Tacy books by Maud Hart Lovelace, they were always making fudge amongst their high school crowd with Betsy, Tacy, Tib, Carney, et al.  They must've had a knack for it because no one ever complained about grainy fudge.  Although it is a work of fiction after all, as fictitious as my making non-grainy fudge.  I knew I was taking a risk though since the instructions were a bit sparse.  I did try the old-fashioned soft ball test of dropping a bit of the boiling fudge mixture into ice-cold water until it formed a soft ball.  It took forever for the fudge to get to that stage and I was afraid of overcooking it.  But actually I think I undercooked it because I cheated and also used a candy thermometer to see when it got to 220 degrees F or "soft ball" stage.  By the ice-cold water test, the fudge formed a soft ball at 210 degrees so I finally took it off since it had been boiling for over 20 minutes and the thermometer hadn't budged a degree above 210 for 10 minutes.  So I got insecure about it and took it off the burner.  I followed the rest of the instructions to a T but my fudge still ended up grainy.  Sigh.  Epic fail.

Someday I will conquer old-fashioned fudge making.  Today was not that day.

3 cups sugar
3 cups milk
2 tablespoons corn syrup
6 ounces semisweet chocolate
3 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chopped roasted almonds

1. Butter 8 x 8-inch pan.
2. In large, heavy saucepan, bring sugar, milk, corn syrup, and chocolate to a boil.
3. Put a drop of mixture in 1 cup of ice-cold water. When the drop forms a soft ball, remove from heat. If ball does not form, continue cooking and repeat until ball forms.
4. Add butter and vanilla extract to hot mixture. Cool. When saucepan with chocolate mixture has cooled to a lukewarm temperature, beat mixture with spoon until it losses its gloss and becomes thick. Stir in almonds before mixture cools completely. Cool in pan. Cut in desired-size squares.