Intriguing posts about ice cream and their toppings led me to Mom’s Hot Fudge Sauce as seen on the HomesickTexan blog posted by AngAK (and refound for me by Curious Holmes). This recipe (4 oz of unsweetened chocolate, 3 cups of sugar, 1 stick of butter and a 12 oz can of evaporated milk) promised 44 ounces of gooey chocolate delight.
Thoughtful colleenmomof2 saw my post and provided Dave's Hot Fudge Ice Cream Sauce. Basically, it’s a scaled-down version of Mom’s, with less sugar, proportionally more chocolate and more butter. Huzzah. Smaller quantities (20 ounces) meant fewer ounces of associated guilt.
I copy/pasted both recipes into one sheet to prepare my comparison test.
Postulating the “more chocolate is better” theory, I started with Dave’s recipe...and, in my rush to get to the “taste test” stage of the experiment, I completely skipped the instructions. Apparently, I can’t read when images of hot fudge clog my brain.
Grabbing a Teflon pot, I added a cup of sugar, a stick of butter, and a can of evaporated milk, put it over low heat, then reviewed my chocolate options. Both recipes called for unsweetened chocolate and I had none. What I did have was 11 pounds of 70/30 bittersweet and 11 pounds of 55% semisweet. Surely I could get to the Promised Land from here?
The engineer in me crawled out from her dusty cubicle and said, “A ratio must exist for replacing unsweetened chocolate and sugar with other forms of chocolate.” So I riffled through my Alice Medrich chocolate books looking for chocolate ratios. No luck. Then I pulled out my Fran Bigelow chocolate book and read about cocoa solids, cocoa butter, and cacao liquor. No ratio table there either. I went back to the bookshelf and scanned four other chocolate recipe books and oh, for the love of Escoffier, would someone please tell me what the frigging ratio is!
Lifting my weary head from the world of words, I gave up and simply substituted 5 oz of bittersweet for 3 oz of unsweetened. I stirred until melted and then read the instructions.
Oh.
Okay. I jumped right to the ice bath step and quickly came to the realization that no amount of cooling would thicken this sauce. I looked back to Dave's recipe for help.
Oh.
Did I mention the part where I can’t read when chocolate is involved? Blame it on my parents for having such a large family, but we never had “small” cans of evaporated milk in our house. There was one size can of evaporated milk and it was the 12-ounce can. I still don’t know what a small 5-ounce can looks like.
To my addled brain, I had 2.5 times the correct amount of liquid. In order not to waste what I had already started, I added another stick of butter, another cup of sugar and another11 ounces of 70/30 bittersweet chocolate. Does 70/30 mean that the chocolate is made with 30% sugar? Did my pound of bittersweet equal ~5 ounces of sugar and ~11 ounces of unsweetened chocolate? Who knew. Apparently, if Alice or Fran knew, they weren't telling.
Let me cut to the chase. Here is my rescued result. It’s thick. It’s rich. And if David were here, I’d kiss him right now. While apologizing profusely for completely ignoring his instructions.
Marilyn’s Dsylexic Homage to Dave’s Hot Fudge Topping
2 cups sugar (1 pound)
1 12-oz can of evaporated milk.
2 sticks unsalted butter, (8 ounces) room-temperature
1 pound 70/30 bittersweet, chopped into fine slivers (I used Callebaut)
Add sugar and evaporated milk to pot and stir continuously until mixture boils. Boil 1 minute or until the sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from heat and add soft butter and slivered chocolate. Stir until you can’t stand it anymore.
Makes 6 8-ounce jars plus tasty samples for the cook. Due to the butter, keep in frig. Microwave 1 minute at 50% power to warm.
Produces 52 addictive ounces, which the Clever and Witty Reader will note is not only more topping than Dave's, but even more topping than Mom’s, whose recipe was initially not used because the tester did not want that much topping in the house.
http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g166/Finer_Kitchens/DSC01218.jpg
Thoughtful colleenmomof2 saw my post and provided Dave's Hot Fudge Ice Cream Sauce. Basically, it’s a scaled-down version of Mom’s, with less sugar, proportionally more chocolate and more butter. Huzzah. Smaller quantities (20 ounces) meant fewer ounces of associated guilt.
I copy/pasted both recipes into one sheet to prepare my comparison test.
Postulating the “more chocolate is better” theory, I started with Dave’s recipe...and, in my rush to get to the “taste test” stage of the experiment, I completely skipped the instructions. Apparently, I can’t read when images of hot fudge clog my brain.
Grabbing a Teflon pot, I added a cup of sugar, a stick of butter, and a can of evaporated milk, put it over low heat, then reviewed my chocolate options. Both recipes called for unsweetened chocolate and I had none. What I did have was 11 pounds of 70/30 bittersweet and 11 pounds of 55% semisweet. Surely I could get to the Promised Land from here?
The engineer in me crawled out from her dusty cubicle and said, “A ratio must exist for replacing unsweetened chocolate and sugar with other forms of chocolate.” So I riffled through my Alice Medrich chocolate books looking for chocolate ratios. No luck. Then I pulled out my Fran Bigelow chocolate book and read about cocoa solids, cocoa butter, and cacao liquor. No ratio table there either. I went back to the bookshelf and scanned four other chocolate recipe books and oh, for the love of Escoffier, would someone please tell me what the frigging ratio is!
Lifting my weary head from the world of words, I gave up and simply substituted 5 oz of bittersweet for 3 oz of unsweetened. I stirred until melted and then read the instructions.
Oh.
Okay. I jumped right to the ice bath step and quickly came to the realization that no amount of cooling would thicken this sauce. I looked back to Dave's recipe for help.
Oh.
Did I mention the part where I can’t read when chocolate is involved? Blame it on my parents for having such a large family, but we never had “small” cans of evaporated milk in our house. There was one size can of evaporated milk and it was the 12-ounce can. I still don’t know what a small 5-ounce can looks like.
To my addled brain, I had 2.5 times the correct amount of liquid. In order not to waste what I had already started, I added another stick of butter, another cup of sugar and another11 ounces of 70/30 bittersweet chocolate. Does 70/30 mean that the chocolate is made with 30% sugar? Did my pound of bittersweet equal ~5 ounces of sugar and ~11 ounces of unsweetened chocolate? Who knew. Apparently, if Alice or Fran knew, they weren't telling.
Let me cut to the chase. Here is my rescued result. It’s thick. It’s rich. And if David were here, I’d kiss him right now. While apologizing profusely for completely ignoring his instructions.
Marilyn’s Dsylexic Homage to Dave’s Hot Fudge Topping
2 cups sugar (1 pound)
1 12-oz can of evaporated milk.
2 sticks unsalted butter, (8 ounces) room-temperature
1 pound 70/30 bittersweet, chopped into fine slivers (I used Callebaut)
Add sugar and evaporated milk to pot and stir continuously until mixture boils. Boil 1 minute or until the sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from heat and add soft butter and slivered chocolate. Stir until you can’t stand it anymore.
Makes 6 8-ounce jars plus tasty samples for the cook. Due to the butter, keep in frig. Microwave 1 minute at 50% power to warm.
Produces 52 addictive ounces, which the Clever and Witty Reader will note is not only more topping than Dave's, but even more topping than Mom’s, whose recipe was initially not used because the tester did not want that much topping in the house.
http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g166/Finer_Kitchens/DSC01218.jpg
