Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Sauce

A chocolate sauce made by melting chocolate and sugar, thickening with boiling water, optionally adding walnuts, served hot over ice cream with cream.

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

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 ↓

Chocolate Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the Baker's chocolate and powdered sugar.

  2. Melt over a double boiler, stirring until smooth.

  3. Gradually add boiling water, a little at a time, stirring constantly until thickened.

Serve

  1. If desired, stir in chopped walnuts just before serving.

  2. Serve hot over ice cream, adding a few spoonfuls of cream for richness.

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 + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Walnut + creamtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Baker's chocolate
Provides the main chocolate flavour and, once melted, the body of the sauce.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves smoothly into the melted chocolate.
Boiling water
Loosens the melted chocolate and sugar mixture as it thickens into a sauce.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, softening the sauce's texture.

The step that matters

Gradually add boiling water, a little at a time, stirring constantly until thickened. Adding the water all at once can cause the melted chocolate to seize into a grainy, lumpy mass. Adding it slowly while stirring lets the mixture emulsify smoothly and thicken evenly.

Swap the walnut

The recipe marks walnut as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chocolate, sugar, cream):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Hazelnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, sugar, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

More chocolate sauce recipes

Hot 40for Ice Cream 9 See all 106 →

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipesChocolate Drop CookiesChocolate Drop Cookies50 recipes