I have a very good reason for making hot fudge sauce on a Monday morning. At least I did. I needed it for an ice cream recipe I had planned for this week. It was going to be a coffee fudge ripple. Sounds good, huh? But the ice cream didn’t turn out exactly as I’d planned, so I (temporarily) ditched that idea. But in the meantime, can we talk about this sauce?
My mother loved hot fudge. It was probably her favorite thing in the world. and I have vivid memories of her tucking in to bowls of half melted vanilla covered with this stuff. No cherries, no whipped cream, or nuts, just lots of molten chocolate, the hotter and thicker the better.
This sauce is a revelation to me. I adore chocolate but for some reason never followed my mother’s lead. It’s been years if not decades since I’ve tasted hot fudge, and let me just say, I’m now a believer. This sauce is easy and perfect. It must qualify as the ideal chocolate incarnation, creamier even than a truffle or a mousse, with truly got mind-blowing mouth-feel. In fact the word mouth-feel, (if it is a word!) must have been invented to describe this stuff.
A silky liquid when first made and still warm, it solidifies into a creamy fudge-like consistency when it cools. Then, after mere seconds in a microwave, it becomes a smoldering lava flow of pure chocolate. Wow. Not for every day, I know. Not for every week, or even month. But every now and again, just…wow. This is my mother’s recipe, tweaked.
Homemade Bittersweet Hot Fudge Sauce
fills 2 8 oz jars
approximately 1 cup of bittersweet chocolate chips
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter
2 cups confectioner’s sugar
1 1/3 cups evaporated milk
1 Tbsp vanilla paste (or extract)
- Melt the butter and chocolate in a small saucepan over low heat. Add in the sugar and milk and bring back up to a boil. Lower the heat and cook for about 6 minutes.
- Pour into jars and store in the refrigerator. When ready to use, microwave the sauce VERY briefly to heat it up.
I originally imagined this thick sauce swirled into this coffee ice cream.
I wanted thick rivers of fudge, not wimpy little veins of chocolate
sauce. I wanted a sauce that would stay soft and plushy in the ice
cream.
But my coffee ice cream turned out more like a frappuccino; it was icy due to the high amount of strong coffee that I put into my mix. So, while it wasn’t the right ice cream for a fudge ripple. it was fine as a base for this incredible sauce.
Life is good…
PS — The ice cream has an iced coffee flavor, no sugar, just pure coffee and cream, and while it was on the icy side, it was unusual and pretty good. Here’s what I did in case pure iced coffee as ice cream appeals to you: 1 cup very cold very strong coffee, 1 Tbsp instant espresso powder, 1 1/2 cups heavy cream, 1/2 cup whole milk mixed together and refrigerated. Then process according to your ice cream machine’s directions. No ice cream machine? Freeze the mixture in large zip lock baggies, then break apart the frozen mass into a strong blender or food processor and process until creamy. Freeze until firm.
One year ago today—
Oat Crackers