Hot Fudge Sauce

March 15, 2007 at 1:56 pm (Dessert, Ice cream & toppings, My brain, Quick weeknight recipe, Sauce/dressing, unrated, Website / blog)

Most hot fudge sauce recipes call for bar chocolate, corn syrup, and heavy cream, none of which I typically have around. So what to do when you get a desperate desire for hot fudge at 11:30pm, after all the stores are closed? Here’s my improvised version:

• 1/4 cup cocoa (sifted)
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup organic half and half
• 1 Tbs. butter
• a touch of vanilla

It was pretty good. In the past my improvisations have tasted more like chocolate syrup than hot fudge, but this concoction leaned closer to the hot fudge side. It was perhaps a tad too sweet and a bit too thin. I think next time I would use 1/4 cup sugar and 1/4 cup half and half. It’s not at all healthy of course, but is hot fudge ever healthy?

I tried a similar version from epicurious, which had overwhelming positive reviews. Here’s the recipe with my modifications:

• 1/3 cup heavy cream (I used table cream with 15% fat)
• 1/4 cup light corn syrup (omitted, but added a Tbs. of white sugar)
• 1/6 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1/8 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
• 1/8 teaspoon salt (a bit too much for my taste)
• 3 oz fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), finely chopped (I used 2 ounces callebaut bittersweet)
• 1 Tbs. unsalted butter ( I felt like it had a bit too much of a butter taste, so next time I’d try less)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla (I forgot this)

The final hot fudge sauce had the perfect consistency: thick, shiny, it hardened a bit when poured over ice cream, but just the very surface, the rest was still warm and gooey. The flavor was good but not quite perfect, I’m not sure why. I can’t decided if it was too sweet or not sweet enough. Certainly there was too much of a butter flavor.