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Hot Chocolate Sauce
Melt two squares chocolate in a sauce-pan, add one cup sugar, one tablespoon butter and two-thirds cup boiling water. Simmer fifteen minutes. Cool slightly and add three-fourths teaspoon vanilla.
A plain unsweetened-chocolate sauce of the type served over ice cream, steamed puddings or plain cake. Two things need translating: what a "square" of chocolate is, and how far fifteen minutes of simmering takes the syrup.
- Squares of chocolateA square is one ounce of unsweetened baking chocolate, so this calls for 2 oz total. Modern bars are often scored into half-ounce sections, and some brands sell 4 oz bars unmarked — weigh rather than count. Semisweet or chocolate chips will make the sauce cloying against the full cup of sugar.
- Two squares to one cup sugarThat ratio is sweet by current taste. If you want the chocolate forward, ¾ cup sugar with the same 2 oz is a reasonable adjustment, though it will set a little softer.
- Melt gentlyUnsweetened chocolate scorches quickly over direct heat. Use low heat and stir constantly, or melt it in a bowl over hot water before returning it to the pan with the sugar and butter.
- Boiling water, added boilingThe recipe specifies boiling water, and it is worth following: it dissolves the sugar at once and blends smoothly into the melted chocolate. Cooler water may make the chocolate stiffen and look grainy at first, though at this ratio of water to chocolate it will generally smooth out again as the sauce comes up to a simmer.
- Fifteen minutes is a real simmerThis is not warming through: the sugar and water are being cooked down to a syrup, which is what gives the sauce body and gloss. Keep it at a bare simmer and stir occasionally; hard boiling will drive off too much water and the sauce will set hard as it cools. Expect it to thicken in the pan and again on cooling.
- Vanilla last, off the heatAdding it after the pan comes off, as directed, keeps the aroma from boiling away. "Cool slightly" means a few minutes, not to room temperature.
- Yield and keepingAbout a cup of sauce, enough for six servings over ice cream or pudding. Refrigerated it should keep for at least a week and will be stiff when cold; reheat over hot water with a spoonful of water or cream to loosen it.
Unsweetened chocolate sold in cast squares was the standard American baking chocolate from the mid-nineteenth century onward, and a great many turn-of-the-century dessert sauces are simply that chocolate, sugar, butter and water boiled to a syrup — cocoa powder was available but the solid bar gave a richer sauce because it kept its cocoa butter. 52 Sunday Dinners (1913) was arranged as a year of complete Sunday menus. The long fifteen-minute simmer belongs to an era when sauces were cooked to a specific stage by eye and feel rather than measured by thermometer.