Perfect Chocolate Sauce is my first post of the new year. It’s either very well-timed or about 2 weeks too late, depending on the way you look at things.
Certainly a simple yet decadent perfect chocolate sauce might have been a handy addition to your holiday entertaining. After all, this sauce is so basic that it’s perfect for serving with so many things in so many ways. Of course, it’s delicious plain, just as it is. Kids can drizzle it on ice cream and the adults among us can add a splash of something boozy and dip big fat strawberries in it. Rich, thick and glossy at room temperature, but when slightly heated it pours beautifully. It contains none of the butter or cream that can dull a sauce’s chocolaty perfection. The very simplicity of this sauce is why I consider it perfect.
Though I did hesitate calling this the perfect chocolate sauce. Do you know how many recipes there are on the web that are perfect? Quite a few it turns out– but nowhere near as many as the best. Perfect and Best are lazy words we food bloggers use because they’re words that Google can understand. So I hesitate to use them except under the perfectly best circumstances.
Of course we can’t blame food bloggers entirely for taking these phrases and editorially pissing all over them until they mean absolutely nothing. Because the revered New York Times may have started this war of superlatives back in 2008 when it dubbed one recipe the “perfect” chocolate chip cookie. In fact they suggested sainthood for Madame Toll House herself. Talk about effusive! (yes I used an exclamation point there– something else I rarely do)
The recipe I refer to is by Jacques Torres. You can find it just about anywhere. Simply type in the phrase “the best chocolate chip cookies– EVER” and you’ll find it. So I won’t bother to reproduce it here. Besides I am not really talking about chocolate cookies. I’m here to explain why I’ve chosen the perfect chocolate sauce as my first post of the New Year.
You see, one of my goals for 2014 is to occasionally provide recipes that are basic enough to be foolproof. I figure we’ve been cooking together long enough and you deserve a few of these pantry staples. Recipes that you can use however you darn well please. These recipes won’t become a constant new direction for my blog. There will still be plenty of challenging recipes for grown up palates. I’ll still do booze and wine. But every now and again expect something like this perfect chocolate sauce. Recipes that just work time after time. Recipes that will please just about everyone. Recipes with which you can do whatever you darn well please. GREG
Ingredients
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup water
- 3/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
- ½ cup agave nectar
- 3 ounce 60% semisweet chocolate (finely chopped)
Directions
Place the sugar, water, cocoa powder and agave nectar in a medium saucepan set over medium-high heat. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring frequently. Remove the pan from heat just as the mixture begins to boil; add chopped chocolate, stirring until completely melted.
While the sauce is still warm and pourable pass it through a fine meshed sieve to remove any lumps. It may be used immediately if you want a pourable sauce, or you can let it sit for a couple of hours to thicken.
Store the chocolate sauce covered and refrigerated for up to 10 days. Gently rewarm or bring to room temperature before serving.
Looks pretty perfect to me! And I do love those NYT cookies.
Amazing !! yuppieee chocolate sauce. Now i can make easily. Thanks for posting it. I just love it.
“to occasionally provide recipes that are basic enough to be foolproof.” = that’s a great goal! I try that with every recipe, but sometimes I get baffled, stumped, and confused comments on 3 ingredient no-bake recipes or 4 ingredient cookies or on smoothies. So I’ve learned to use the word foolproof pretty infrequently. LOL Please keep posting about chocolate, booze, and wine. My favorite ingredients! 🙂
Happy New Year! I’m all for foolproof recipes. They make life easy and please family and friends. Last week I spent 4 days working on a recipe from a magazine, and seven cakes later, it was all to no avail. It was aggravating, disappointing, and to be frank a tremendous waste of my time and effort. Foolproof recipes are the kinder, gentler way to cook. Speaking of foolproof, one knows when one sees the name David Lebovitz that it is going to work. He is a master.
I agree with commenter Kathy about the use of strongly brewed coffee in a chocolate sauce. The coffee heightens the flavor of the chocolate. It really is wonderful. The combination of Dutch processed Cocoa powder and chocolate is particularly nice. The milder Dutched cocoa and lower percentage chocolate complement each other beautifully. (By the way, if you have never tried it, look for Pernigotti cocoa from Italy’s Piemonte region. It is a particularly lovely cocoa.)
I like seeing the use of a lower percentage chocolate. Many of today’s recipes call for higher percentage chocolates, and they simply do not work.This is especially true for sauces and ganaches where lazy recipe writers have simply replaced the lower percentage chocolates with today’s trendy higher percentage ones. Many of these basic recipes were written years ago, long before the higher percentage chocolates came into vogue. The simple truth is that higher and lower percentage chocolates, with their different chemical make-up, are not universally interchangeable. Thirty years ago, before the advent of the higher (and drier) chocolates there was almost no perceptible difference between bittersweet and semisweet chocolate; percentages were rarely quoted, but ran between ran between 52 and 62% — percentages which remain to this day my favorites.
I’m all for getting a set of go-to recipes!
Right there with you on those go-to recipes Greg, that’s what I call Bijouxs Basics! Perfect.
I make a choc sauce that is pretty much the same but replace the water with strongly brewed coffee, it is a keeper
That is a great idea. GREG
Forget Hoppin’ John, chocolate is the key to good luck in the New Year. Wishing you a great one!
I love the addition of the agave nectar! I can’t wait to try this perfect sauce. Have a wonderful weekend!
Because I’m into eating much healthier in January than December, chocolate sauce is even more important because I need my chocolate fix every couple of days. It makes it so much easier to avoid eclairs and donuts.
I definitely need a perfect chocolate sauce in my life, and this definitely fits the bill. I love it on ice cream!
Yeah chocolate sauce! It is one of those things I don’t believe in buying in a bottle-though I was spoiled to grow up with a father who believed in having a jar of homemade chocolate sauce in the fridge at all times. It is important!
Never too late (or early) for chocolate sauce!
I love a good pantry staple! Thanks for posting. This really does seem foolproof.
This looks too easy — do you have a favorite brand of chocolate, Greg?
No, not really. I just pay attention the the percentage. GREG
Wow, agave nectar? That beats heating chocolate chips in a microwave!