Chocolate sauce

Chocolate sauce

15 min
This is the best chocolate sauce recipe with cream, a bit of butter, and lots of dark chocolate. Serve this indulgent dark chocolate sauce warm over vanilla ice cream and a mix of your favourite berries the next time you want to impress and delight friends and family with a delicious yet quick dessert.
https://www.arlafoods.co.uk/recipes/chocolate-sauce/

Instructions

Step 1
  • Break chocolate into smaller pieces.
Step 2
  • Bring cream to a boil in a saucepan at medium heat.
Step 3
  • Turn down the heat, add chocolate and butter. Stir until the chocolate has melted.
Step 4
  • Serve with vanilla ice cream and fresh berries.
Enjoy!
Tip

As this dessert sauce cools, it may, like other sauces, form a layer of 'skin' on top. This happens naturally as the fat from the cream rises to the surface and sets slightly as it reacts with the cooler air. This skin is nothing to be afraid of, and when you reheat the sauce, it will dissolve and reincorporate into the sauce naturally as you stir it. If you want to serve your sauce cold, gently removing the skin is the best way to go. Incorporating it by whisking it in with the rest of the cold sauce does not work well and may result in an uneven texture. Try storing the sauce with a layer of cling film directly on top of its surface to prevent a skin from forming at all.

Questions about chocolate sauce

You can easily and quickly whip up a delicious homemade sauce with dark chocolate to use for various kinds of dessert. Below, you can read our answers to some of the most asked questions about chocolate sauce, among other things, how to best thicken, use, and store it.

What is chocolate sauce?
Chocolate sauce is not just melted chocolate. It is melted chocolate cooked with cream and butter. The dairy products thicken the sauce and give it a deliciously smooth consistency. Cooking the sauce with butter and cream also ensures that it does not harden completely when cooled as melted chocolate naturally does.
How to make chocolate sauce?
Following our recipe for chocolate sauce, it is incredibly easy to make your own homemade one. Just break the chocolate into pieces as you, at medium heat, bring the cream to a boil. After you have turned down the heat, chocolate and butter are added, and the mixture is stirred until both has melted and it is even. Enjoy your homemade dessert sauce with ice cream and fresh mixed berries while it is still warm.
How to thicken chocolate sauce?
The sauce will always seem runnier right when it finishes boiling, but it quickly thickens as it cools. As such, allow your sauce to cool for a bit to truly test its consistency. The recipe calls for butter and cream that helps ensure a rich, silky texture, and if you have reheated your homemade sauce and feel that it is bit on the thin side, you can add a bit of cream and whisk it well to thicken it before serving.
What to do with leftover chocolate sauce?
A homemade chocolate sauce can be enjoyed in a myriad of ways. You can make your pancakes or waffles even more indulgent, pour it over homemade ice cream, use it as a decadent dip for fresh fruits and berries, stir it into milk to make delicious chocolate milk, or drizzle it over cakes and other baked goods.
Can you freeze chocolate sauce?
Dessert sauce made with chocolate freezes well. Make sure to store it in an airtight container with cling film across the surface to prevent crystallisation and freezer burn. In the freezer, chocolate sauce will keep for up to 6 months. Let it thaw in your refrigerator before reheating it in a water bath. If you are instead using a microwave to reheat the sauce for ease, stop at 10 second intervals to stir and check the sauce's consistency.
How long does chocolate sauce last?
This homemade sauce may be kept in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. Simply store it in an airtight container and reheat the amount you want to use in a water bath or, slowly but surely, in a microwave. Do not reheat all the leftover sauce if you do not plan on finishing it as reheating it multiple times may shorten its shelf-life.

Ingredients

Chocolate sauce
Dark chocolate
200 g
Double cream
2½ dl
Butter
25 g
Serve with
Vanilla ice cream
½ l
Berry mix
200 g

Easy hot chocolate sauce

An easy chocolate sauce is a fast way to make great desserts even better or make the best dipping sauce. Calling for just three different ingredients – dark chocolate, double cream, and butter – and taking only 15 minutes to prepare, this recipe is sure to become your new staple dessert treat. The cream and small amount of butter make the sauce shiny and give this thick sauce a perfect consistency and velvety mouthfeel. The dark chocolate is of course the be-all and end-all of the recipe and gives the sauce its characteristic rich chocolaty flavour that is both sweet and a little bit bitter.

Chocolate sauce uses

Our simple chocolate sauce is easy to prepare and has many different uses that are equally delicious. Read on to learn about some of the best ways to use your homemade dessert sauce.

Pour over dessert and ice cream

This homemade sauce is great poured onto desserts like pancakes and Belgian waffles. To make the ultimate, indulgent dessert, pair one of these golden, fried delights with vanilla ice cream and this sauce – it does not get much better than that. Of course, it also tastes delicious to keep it simple and simply pour the warm sauce on top of a serving of ice-cold, homemade ice cream since this may just be the best chocolate sauce for ice cream. No matter whether you have chosen to make a traditional, old-fashioned vanilla-flavoured ice cream or have decided to experiment with other classic flavours like caramel, peanut butter, or chocolate, this dark chocolate sauce for ice cream will be a hit.

Use as a dip for fruit and berries

Another option for how to use the homemade dessert sauce is to make an easy and delicious dessert out of fresh fruits and berries with an indulgent chocolate sauce dip. While chocolate-covered strawberries are of course a well-known and well-loved staple, many other types of fruits and berries also taste great paired with chocolate. Experiment with raspberries, bananas, blackberries, blueberries, cherries, peaches, and nectarines, depending on what is in season, to figure out your favourite fruit or berry for you delicious dipping chocolate sauce.

Experiment with the recipe

If you want to intensify the flavours of your homemade dark chocolate sauce, add ½ teaspoon of sea salt to it as it cooks. Adding salt is a great way of enhancing flavours in both sweet and savoury dishes and combining it with chocolate helps reduce the chocolate's natural bitterness as well.

If you, on the other hand, would like to literally spice up the recipe, try adding powdered red chili. The chili powder's spice works beautifully with the richness of the dark chocolate as well as the creaminess of the butter and cream. A chocolate chili sauce is great as a dipping sauce for sweet fruits like strawberries.

A third option is to give the dessert sauce a warm twist by adding 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and 2 teaspoons of coffee liqueur, or for instance Kahlua, to it. The addition of cinnamon and alcohol gives the sauce a warming taste as well as a little bit of a kick. It is also delicious with a hint of spirit like cognac or whisky; these are flavours that work especially well with chocolate.