This is a wonderful chocolate sauce. At the restaurant, we labeled it and know it as Extraordinarily Yummy Chocolate Sauce. It is wonderful warmed and poured over ice cream. Drizzle it on a plate as garnish. Thin it out with some cream to make a chocolate soup. Thin it out some more, and you've got a decadent hot chocolate. This stuff keeps for a long time in the fridge, if you can stand to let it sit there.
What You'll Need
- 4 oz. butter
- 8 oz. granulated sugar
- 1 cup corn syrup
- 16 oz. heavy cream
- 5 oz whole milk
- pinch of salt
- 4 cinnamon sticks
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder
- 2 tablespoons water
- 2 tablespoons dark rum
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 8 oz. good quality dark chocolate
How to Make It
In a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat, boil butter, sugar, corn syrup cream, milk, salt and cinnamon sticks until light caramel in color. This could take awhile, so keep an eye on it. The mixture will also have a nasty tendency to want to boil over, so keep adjusting the heat to keep it at a slow boil--not such a rapid boil that Bad Things happen. This is an inexact science, so don't walk away.
In a stainless steel bowl, whisk together cocoa powder, water and rum to a thick paste. Add the vanilla and chocolate to the bowl.
When the milk/cream mixture is a lovely light caramel color, pour into bowl over the cocoa paste, vanilla and chocolate. Let sit a minute or two, then whisk/stir everything together thoroughly.
Strain and cool. Store in the fridge but serve warm.
Variations
For chocolate-orange sauce (this is the best), substitute the zest of 2 oranges for the cinnamon sticks and 2 tablespoons Grand Marnier, Cointreau or Triple Sec for the rum.
For straight-up chocolate sauce, leave out the cinnamon sticks and substitute Godiva liqueur for the rum. Increase vanilla to 1 tablespoon.
For mint chocolate sauce, substitute a handful of fresh mint for the cinnamon and creme de menthe for the rum.
I haven't tried this, but how about using raspberry puree in place of the water and substituting Chambord for the rum?
Chocolate nut sauce? Try substituting toasted hazelnuts for the cinnamon and using Frangelico. Or toasted almonds and Amaretto. Play with it. Variations are pretty much only limited by your imagination.
