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Hot Chocolate Sauce for Pudding

A hot chocolate sauce made with unsweetened chocolate, butter, boiling water, sugar, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Hot Chocolate Sauce for Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Melt and blend

  1. Melt the chocolate and butter together in a bowl.

  2. Blend thoroughly until smooth.

Simmer and finish

  1. Gradually pour in the boiling water while stirring constantly.

  2. Add the sugar and bring to a boil for fifteen minutes.

  3. Remove from heat and flavor with vanilla.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Chocolate + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,543 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Unsweetened chocolate
Provides the main chocolate flavor and body of the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, glossy texture and rich mouthfeel.
Boiling water
Loosens the melted chocolate into a pourable, fluid sauce.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and helps it thicken as it boils.

The step that matters

Gradually pour in the boiling water while stirring constantly. Adding the hot liquid slowly while stirring lets the melted chocolate and butter blend evenly. Pouring it in all at once can cause the fat to separate and leave a grainy or lumpy sauce.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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