Holiday Vanilla Pecan Fudge with McCormick Vanilla #McCormickBaking

I was compensated for this post on behalf of McCormick, but all opinions are my own.

I absolutely love baking really anytime, but especially this time of year. Baking is the way that I show my family and friends how much I love them by making delicious treats. I normally make sugared pecans, cookies, and other things. McCormick asked me to recreate one of their recipes using McCormick Vanilla Extract so I made some Vanilla Pecan Fudge.

I have actually never made fudge before. I have wanted to try, but just never have gotten the ingredients for it. In the original McCormick recipe it is actually a Vanilla Fudge with Almonds, but since I already had a lot of pecans on hand I decided to change it up a bit.

With just a few simple ingredients you can make this DELICIOUS fudge. I have never heard of using cream cheese in fudge, so I knew from the start this might taste a little different than normal fudge. You start by softening the cream cheese, whipping it in the mixer, then adding the powdered sugar. While this is mixing you can melt the chocolate either in the microwave or a double boiler. I went with microwave this time to make it go a little faster.

Once the chocolate is melted and the cream cheese/sugar mixture is blended, you add in the chocolate and the McCormick Pure Vanilla Extract. Next, add in the chopped pecans or whatever nut you would like. Pour the mixture into a greased pan, top with whole pecans and refrigerate for 1 hour or until set.

This was seriously the easiest recipe and it came out soooo good. The cream cheese flavor does come through, but the vanilla and pecan flavor combines with it to make it a new and delicious treat. I can’t wait to try out different flavoring combos and add ins. McCormick Peppermint extract would be a great addition with some crushed peppermint blended in. The ideas are swirling through my head.

The mixture does need to stay refrigerated since it does contain the cream cheese, but would be a fine to set out for a holiday party or to give as gifts for teachers or coworkers. It only took about 20 minutes to put together then an hour of chilling time. I doubled the recipe very easily to make a 13×9 pan which makes a LOT of fudge.

Thanks to McCormick for sharing this recipe and I can’t wait to try out new versions of the Vanilla Pecan Fudge.