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Hot Chocolate Sauce for Ice Cream

A hot chocolate sauce made with powdered sugar, butter, chocolate, cream, and vanilla, boiled and strained.

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 Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Rub the butter, powdered sugar, and melted chocolate together until creamy.

  2. Boil the mixture for six minutes.

  3. Add the vanilla and boil for a few minutes longer.

Strain and serve

  1. Strain the sauce before serving.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Chocolate + creamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 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

Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and body, and dissolves into the sauce to make it smooth.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture and mellow mouthfeel.
Chocolate
Provides the main chocolate flavor and helps thicken the sauce as it cools.
Vanilla
Adds a warm aroma that rounds out the chocolate flavor.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for six minutes. Boiling evaporates water and concentrates the sugar, so the time sets how thick the sauce becomes. Boiling too long can make it stiffen or scorch on the bottom of the pan.

“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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