Skip to main content
Dessert

Hot Chocolate Sauce

A sweet chocolate sauce made with butter, sugar, boiling water, chocolate, and vanilla, served hot over ice cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

  1. Melt the chocolate in a saucepan.

  2. Add sugar, butter, and boiling water.

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

  4. Cool slightly and add vanilla.

  5. 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. Sugar + chocolatetop 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. Butter + chocolatetop 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

Sugar
Dissolves into the melted chocolate and sweetens the sauce while thickening it as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, glossy texture and a rounded richness to the sauce.
Baker's chocolate
Provides the main chocolate flavour and body of the sauce once melted.
Boiling water
Loosens the melted chocolate and sugar into a pourable sauce that thickens as it cooks.

The step that matters

Stirring during the first 5 minutes of cooking. Constant stirring at the start keeps sugar and melted chocolate evenly mixed and prevents them from scorching on the bottom of the pan, which would give a burnt taste and grainy texture.

“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.

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipes