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Dessert

Hot Chocolate Sauce for Ice Cream

A warm chocolate sauce made with grated chocolate, sugar, water, cream, and salt, served over ice cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Hot Chocolate Sauce for Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Mix the grated chocolate and sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Add the water, cream, and salt.

  3. Cook over medium heat until it forms a soft ball when tested in cold water.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately.

  2. Keep warm by placing the saucepan in hot water.

  3. This sauce can also be served cold if desired.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Grated chocolate
Provides rich chocolate flavour and fat that gives the sauce a smooth body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it cooks, helps set the sauce's thickness and texture.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, making the sauce smoother and silkier.

The step that matters

Cooking to the soft-ball stage. Sugar concentration determines the final texture. Stopping too early leaves the sauce thin and runny, while cooking too long makes it firm, sticky, or grainy as it cools.

“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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