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Chocolate Sundae
Make a thick, smooth paste with powdered cocoa and hot water and add simple syrup until the correct consistency is obtained. Pour over vanilla ice cream.
A fountain-style chocolate sauce built from three things a soda counter always had on hand: cocoa, hot water and the syrup jar. The recipe gives no quantities, so the proportions below are the working ones.
- The hinge: bloom the cocoaWhisking powdered cocoa into hot water first is what makes the sauce smooth rather than gritty. Add the water a spoonful at a time to a mound of cocoa and work it into a stiff paste before loosening it; dumping all the liquid in at once leaves lumps that never disperse.
- Working proportionsAbout 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa to 1/2 cup boiling water gives the paste, then 3/4 to 1 cup simple syrup brings it to a pourable sauce. That yields roughly 1 1/2 to 2 cups, enough for eight to ten sundaes.
- Fountain simple syrupSoda-fountain syrup was heavier than modern equal-parts syrup; pharmacy and fountain formulas often ran to something like two parts sugar to one of water by volume, cooked just to dissolve. With a thinner modern syrup the sauce will be looser and less sweet, so adjust accordingly.
- "Powdered cocoa"This means plain unsweetened cocoa powder, not drinking chocolate or a sweetened mix. Both Dutch-process and natural cocoa were available; Dutch-process is darker and less acidic, natural cocoa sharper and fruitier.
- Correct consistencyAim for something that ribbons off the spoon and holds a line for a second — roughly heavy cream. It thickens noticeably as it cools, so judge it slightly loose while warm.
- Heat and holdingBring the finished sauce just to a simmer for a minute to dissolve any remaining sugar grain, then hold it warm. Refrigerated, it keeps a week or more; reheat gently with a splash of water, as it stiffens considerably when cold.
- A pinch of saltNot in the original, but a small pinch stirred into the paste sharpens the chocolate flavor.
The sundae emerged in American drugstores and soda fountains in the 1880s and 1890s, and the durable explanation — traditional rather than documented, and claimed by several towns including Evanston, Illinois, and Two Rivers, Wisconsin — is that it began as ice cream with soda syrup served on Sundays, when local ordinance or sentiment forbade the sale of carbonated "soda water." Whatever its origin, the dish was a natural for the fountain trade, since every counter already stocked flavoring syrups by the gallon for sodas and phosphates. This recipe shows the economy of that system: rather than a separate chocolate sauce cooked with butter and cream, the dispenser simply thinned cocoa with the house sugar syrup, which was always at hand and already measured to a standard sweetness. The recipe assumes a practiced hand working fast, which is why quantities are left to judgment and the instruction ends with "until the correct consistency is obtained."