The Story

Many years ago, my grandmother traveled the world. Wherever she went, she asked the cooks in the restaurants she visited to prepare her favorite dessert, vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce. If she liked the taste of the sauce, she would ask the cook how he or she prepared it. Over time, she narrowed her own recipe to just the items necessary to make the best sauce. I can assure you, it was indeed very good!

Years later my mother would make that same sauce for us when we were celebrating someone's birthday, or sitting down for turkey dinner on Thanksgiving or Christmas Day. When I ventured out on my own a few decades ago, I made sure I had a copy of that recipe myself.

Eventually, I needed to find substitutes for a couple of the ingredients. Although I didn't change the recipe's procedure, I replaced the original ingredients with gourmet chocolate, dark maple syrup, coconut milk, and glycerin-based vanilla extract. Lo and behold, the sauce got even better.

Now you have the opportunity to benefit from my grandmother's labor of love, my mother's faithful transmission of her mother's recipe, and my need to change the ingredients. May you have many happy celebrations!

Below, you will see the recipe for my chocolate sauce. You can save or print this page for your own use, with my blessing. After using this recipe yourself, if you like it and would like to express your appreciation for it, please go here to Make a Donation. Also, please recommend this page to your friends, so they can come here and download their own copies.

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The Best Chocolate Sauce Ever

Ingredients:

Unsweetened Chocolate (Gourmet Quality)

—- (Recommended: 9.7-oz bar of Scharffen Berger Unsweetened 99% Cacao.)

Maple Syrup (Grade B, Organic. This adds a caramel flavor.)

Coconut Milk (Thai Kitchen Premium or Premium Organic Coconut Milk. Not “Lite”.)

Vanilla Extract (Recommended: A glycerin-based Vanilla Extract. An alcohol-based vanilla extract can detract from the taste of the sauce if overused, so use that sparingly.)

Ratios are: 4 oz chocolate to 4 oz maple syrup to 2 oz coconut milk to 1 tsp vanilla,

    or 10 oz chocolate to 10 oz maple syrup to 5 oz coconut milk to 2-3 tsps vanilla.

Preparation

0) Put plenty of water in the bottom of your double boiler, so it won’t boil dry. Pour the 10 ounces of maple syrup into a measuring cup. Pour the 5 ounces of coconut milk into a second measuring cup and add the vanilla extract to the milk.

1) Melt the chocolate in double boiler at medium-high heat.

2) Soon after the chocolate has melted completely, pour the maple syrup into the chocolate and mix thoroughly. Then add the coconut milk and vanilla extract and again mix thoroughly. Mixture will remain liquid and grainy.

3) Turn heat to High. Heat the mixture to 155-180 degrees F (165-175 seems optimal.) Do not exceed 180 degrees F, or the mix could taste burned.

4) Stir regularly to maintain an even temperature. The mix will lose its graininess and become smooth, eventually thickening into a slightly gloppy consistency (“slightly gloppy” means that, if you trail some from a spoon onto the surface of the mix, the trailed sauce should remain in a shape clearly distinct from the mix.) This consistency should stay relatively soft when poured over cold ice cream. Heating the sauce increasingly past this point will make the sauce become increasingly harder when poured on ice cream later. Depending on the efficiency of your double boiler, this step can take as long as 10-12 minutes. Refrigerate in a capped glass jar.

To reheat the sauce later, place open jar of sauce in a pot of cold water about 1/2 of the height of the jar. (I recommend against microwave reheating.) Heat slowly in the water at about medium heat, reducing the heat if necessary to a simmer. Too vigorous a bubbling may splash water into the open jar onto the sauce, which should be avoided. (You can rest the cap on the jar, if you are careful to make certain the jar can breathe.) Once the sauce begins melting, stir occasionally until completely liquid (10-20 minutes).

Pour over ice cream and enjoy!

Recipe Courtesy of TheLiberative and his family.

URL: http://TheLiberative.com/wi/food/