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Dessert

Hot Chocolate Sauce

A chocolate sauce made by melting chocolate with butter, sugar, boiling water, 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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the chocolate in a saucepan.

  2. Add the sugar, butter, and boiling water.

  3. Cook for 15 minutes, stirring constantly for the first 5 minutes, then occasionally until done.

Finish and serve

  1. Cool slightly, then add the vanilla.

  2. Serve hot with Philadelphia Ice Cream.

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

Chocolate
Provides the main chocolate flavour and dark colour, and thickens the sauce as it cooks.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and body, and dissolves into the liquid to give the sauce its smooth texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel.
Boiling water
Forms the liquid base that dissolves the sugar and chocolate into a pourable sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring while the sauce cooks. Sugar and chocolate scorch easily on the bottom of a pan. Constant stirring during the first 5 minutes keeps them dissolving evenly and prevents burnt flavour.

“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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