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Dessert

Hot Chocolate Sauce for Ice Cream

A hot chocolate sauce made with water, sugar, cinnamon, cornstarch, chocolate, and vanilla, suitable for drizzling over ice cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,287 recipes. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Hot Chocolate Sauce for Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil together the water, sugar, and cinnamon sticks.

  2. Strain the syrup after 5 minutes of boiling.

  3. Dissolve the cornstarch in cold water and stir it into the syrup.

  4. Add the grated chocolate rubbed smooth in a little water.

  5. Return to the fire and stir until you have a smooth, thick sauce.

  6. Remove from the fire and add the vanilla extract.

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. Cinnamon + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cinnamon + chocolatetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,808 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

Cornstarch
Thickens the syrup into a smooth, thick sauce when heated with the liquid.
Grated chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and body to the sauce.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and adds body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the cornstarch into the syrup and returning to the fire. Cornstarch must be heated while stirring to swell its starch granules and thicken the sauce. If it is not stirred, it can clump and leave lumps, and if it is not brought back to heat, the sauce stays thin.

“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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