I’ve been looking for the holy grail of hot fudge sauce and I tried a new one yesterday. This one is really for grownups as it’s not really sweet and it’s very chocolaty. We find that ice cream is really sweet and then topped with even sweeter hot fudge makes it tough to eat 3 bowls.
We’ve been burning the candle at both ends as usual. We’re nearly ready to launch fooderific.com and a new website I haven’t told you about yet that I’m sharing with Helene Dsouza from MasalaHerb.com and then there’s our business and our EasyRecipe plugin support plus the house chores and shopping and dog walking. I’m sure your lives are just the same so you’ll understand why we threw up our hands yesterday afternoon and headed to the park with the dog.
We brought sandwiches and a blanket and ate and read books in the dappled sunlight. I took these two photos with my tablet that I used as my book reader and it came in handy as a camera, albeit not the best camera.
Then as we’re lying on the blanket, an elderly couple comes to the picnic table next to us and talked about how much they want a new dog since theirs has died and they played with Charlie and he got all excited. They even gave him some chicken and they are now his newest best friends. They got emotional and teary talking about their dog that had died and really appreciated playing with Charlie. All I could think of was, “thank God I gave him a bath this morning.”
He needs a clip and it was warm so I took off his leash and threw a stick in the river and off he went. When I’d had enough I brought him out of the water and went to the car to get his beach towel. After drying him off he shook all over John’s library book (and face). Good thing I live with a man who doesn’t get flustered by ANYTHING — he just laughed. Just as I was going back to the blanket, Charlie Shaw decided to sit and he put his tail in his water bowl. He didn’t move so I took his picture too.
It felt SO good to be doing something other than “I shoulds.” We were only gone a couple of hours and the park is less than 5 minutes from our house so it wasn’t a huge adventure but nice to get away.
The reason I’m telling you about our day is because someone wrote to me the other day and said they really liked EasyRecipe and they followed my blog but I have never posted a photo of John and I’ve never talked about him much. I should have waited until he mowed his beard and put on a decent shirt, but that might not happen soon.
So here goes. You all know we met through an ad on the internet back in 1994. John’s been a programmer all his life and is Aussie right down to his underpants.
He went to a posh school in Melbourne and his parents were both teachers so he doesn’t talk like Crocodile Dundee but I did fall for the Australian accent. He says the same thing about me and to this day even after 18 years, he translates and calls it the trunk of the car instead of the boot and the hood instead of the bonnet and we always buy gas and not petrol.
He’s the most easy-going man I’ve ever known and I can count the number of arguments on the fingers of one hand. Neither of us likes to argue and we’ve never said the words you can’t take back. We’re a very lucky couple. Not perfect.. he IS a man after all. He treats me as a complete equal.
What he likes best though, is ice cream — with or without extra cream on top. I told him I was making some vanilla ice cream and a new hot fudge recipe and I could tell he would be ready for it when I finished. I went to the pantry to get the sugar and there were ants in it! I dumped it out and then had to use raw sugar for the ice cream. John said the ants couldn’t possibly have eaten very much but I dumped them out, all the same.
Raw sugar gave it a bit of a caramel color and taste but only a hint of it. I really liked it. John’s not a caramel person and said, “I’d like chocolate better.”
Hot fudge is the classic sundae topping and a dollop of this on top of your ice cream will make your mouth do a happy dance. I like watching it drip down the ice cream.
The sauce only takes a few minutes to make and most of us have these ingredients on hand so why not give it a go? I used really dark cocoa powder and dark chocolate and the sauce is nearly black. Color aside, it tastes really good.
- ⅔ cup cream
- ¼ cup good cocoa
- ⅓ cup brown sugar (you could go ½ cup if you like it sweeter)
- ½ cup light corn syrup
- ¼ tsp salt (scant)
- 170 grams (6 oz) dark chocolate chopped and divided
- 2 tbs unsalted butter (or use salted and use less salt)
- 1 tsp good vanilla extract
- Place the cream, syrup, sugar, cocoa, salt and half of the chopped chocolate in a saucepan on low heat until chocolate has melted and then raise the temperature until the mixture comes to a simmer. Cook for 5-6 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Remove from heat and add the other half of the chocolate, the butter and the vanilla extract and stir til smooth.
- Let cool for 15-20 minutes and place in jars and when cool place in the refrigerator. The sauce will be very thick but half a minute in the microwave (or less) will make it pourable but still thick.
- It will keep in the fridge up to 2 weeks if it lasts that long.
Nice to meet John, Maureen (and Charlie). I’ve had the same complaint as you all along about fudge sauce. The tooth-curling sweetness of most sauces does make it a little difficult to eat that third bowl of icecream so looking forward to trying this adult version and hoping to make it to the 4th bowl with ease 🙂
still can’t do more than 3 (not really.. one is my limit but if I were taller it would be 3!)
Sounds divine Maureen, & thanks for the introduction to your lovely man :)) cheers Roni xx
What a great story Maureen you are indeed very fortunate. Were you already in Australia or did you travel there to meet John? One day I’ll tell my story too, JT and I have been together since the late seventies! We used to put Nutella on our ice cream as kids, it hardened up from the cold, or you could mix it into the ice cream and it made a creamy chocolate sauce, so yummy. I would have loved this very delicious sauce.
No, I just had to know if he was the person I perceived him to be. He was, so I kept him. 🙂
Maureen: Thank you so much for this hot fudge sauce recipe…It has been a while that I have been trying to find a great one. I am one of the biggest fan of hot fudge sauce!!! Got a huge smile on my face — thanks to you. xx
Nice to meet John! Somehow I got the vibe that neither one of you were argument types; my wife and I are the same way. Really nice ice cream topping. I agree it’s really important that the topping not be too sweet, otherwise that third bowl is hard to swallow. 😉 When we lived in Florida we got in the habit of keeping sugar in the refrigerator, and still do today (and sometimes we’d keep flour in the freezer, particularly whole wheat flour). Anyway, glad you took a day off! Looking forward to hearing more about your new projects.
Soon on the projects. Helene is taking some time off with friends and then we’ll get working 🙂
I love a good chocolate fudge sauce, I’m keeping this for the future for sure. Your dog looks so cute!
Thanks, Suzanne, Charlie is a wonderful dog. He’s John’s dog because I didn’t want another dog after ours died. too painful. So he convinced me that he really REALLY wanted another dog. So he’s John’s dog but Charlie’s mummy’s boy. He follow me everywhere and when I’m here at my computer he’s at my feet.
Sounds like a great way to spend an afternoon, proving you don’t have to go through a lot of trouble or a great distance to get away. And very often, that’s all that’s needed, just to get away. Could be 5 minutes or 5 miles. Just away.
I predict this fudge sauce is going to light up Pinterest and any other place it appears. Thanks for sharing a great recipe.
For us it’s just getting away from the computers. If we’re here we’re either on our desktop or tablets and we needed some time to read. We both love reading and over time we’ve worked instead. No more. Now we’re going to make time, at least 30-45 minutes a day with our noses in a book.
What a lovely post Maureen. John sounds like a delightful man and Charlie is so cute. And you have a chocolate fudge sauce too! Beautiful!
After a death and a failed marriage I was owed a man like John. 🙂 I tell him we’re both lucky.
Lovely to hear about your man – hahah I also met my boyfriend off the internet and he is also a computer programmer.. Love your hot fudge sauce too. Everyone needs a good recipe for this – its like a recipe LBD!
We met on the Internet in 1994 before the web existed 🙂 We’re both old LOL
ha! ha! What a great post! Love the portrait of man and dog. I may not be a lover of ice cream, but I do love fudge sauce – deeelish!
so what do you put your sauce on, Laura?
Waves to John, Charlie and Maureen … looks like a lovely day out. And the fudge sauce is so rich and delicious. I’m definitely going to make this one. 🙂
I hope you like it!
Lovely story about how you met John, thanks for sharing 🙂
John’s not a caramel person?! What about salted caramel? I love the sweet and salty combo.
I haven’t made hot fudge sauce before, I’m a fan of dark chocolate so I don’t buy most chocolate products as I find it too sweet, plus you don’t know what else manufacturer’s put in it, always so many E numbers and letters. Stuff as simple as this should definitely be homemade.
I couldn’t agree more. I don’t know why we all got lazy and thought a drive to the store, stroll the aisles, bring it to the checkout, put it in the car and drive home is easier than putting a few ingredients into a saucepan. It’s not cheap to make it at home but I darned well know what’s in it.
I like the chocolate sauce, Maureen, but not as much as the light, warmth, and intelligence in John’s eyes. You two were meant for each other.
This is one of my fav post from you ever!! Just love the relaxed feel of it, the love that shines through when you speak of John, and of course, that cute little K9 of yours. The fudge recipe is just the icing on top.
I’m a very lucky woman. I spent the day at a cooking school not far from where we live and when I got home John had cleaned the whole house. Now this is NOT something that happens often. Okay, in 18 years it’s never happened, but I exclaimed, “Why??” He said that I’d been working really hard and I deserved a break. I nearly fell over. Then he cracked open a beer and watched the Grand Prix in Melbourne.
The sauce looks delicious! I prefer chocolate sauces that aren’t too sweet, that have a little bitterness to them. I will try this one next.
It was very nice to meet John!
Let me know how you change it because I’m happy with this one but I’m looking for a fudgier one as this one is a bit creamy.
This is such a sweet post and what a lovely recipe. I came back from Margaret River with a bottle of Cointreau Chocolate Liqueur which I need to finish and I am already dreaming of making this fudge sauce. Sighhh
Cointreau Chocolate Liqueur ? I want! 🙂 So nice of you to stop by!
Lovely – sounds soooo good.
We’ve been looking at dogs lately – 2 – but then found out we can’t take them on the subway to work with us. : (
Sounds like you’re such a neat couple! And your dog is just precious! And don’t even get me started about your hot fudge sauce! I want a spoonful of it over my ice cream now!
My grandmother made a mean chocolate fudge sauce for ice cream and I wish I had her recipe. It was very nice meeting John – he sounds delightful.
I would have tossed the sugar too because they leave behind a chemical flavour that I hate.
I just don’t do bugs of any sort. I don’t like to touch them or kill them or anything. ewww
Waving “Hi” to John 🙂
ps: this hot fudge recipe definitely made my mouth water at 4am 😀
what were you doing up at 4am?? get some sleep 🙂
Your “he IS a man” comment made me laugh. John sounds very much like my husband, who, like you, I met on the internet as well.
I love hot fudge sauce on ice cream. Hot fudge and ice cream really is divine.
We are both very lucky women indeed 🙂
What a nice young man you have there Maureen. John sounds very much like my hubby and they seem to share the same love of ice cream.
I am a vanilla girl most of the time, but I do love fudge sauce and this one looks like a treat! I never really think about making any but if you can store it in the fridge, I think I will have a go.
Nazneen
Well, it is still 3 feet high in snow winter, here… so ice cream isn’t on the menu though it is my favourite food in the whole world next to tomatoes and whole wheat bread with butter. This sauce look delicious. There is nothing like a great vanilla ice cream and some really thick ooey-gooey rich sumptuous chocolate sauce smothering it. Of course, the cheery on top is also a must! You’ve got it goin’ on at your house, Maureen! YUMMERS!
🙂
V
Hey I totally understand how you feel. Just to hangout in a park and don’t do some work for once can be a blessing and I believe it’s required if you want to stay sane. lol a proper picture of your better half. John if you read this, you are lucking good!
I like dark choco fudge sauces and just yesterday we were talking about a dark choco sauce for some sweet sushis. ^.^ Great timing maureen, gotta try your recipe!
Btw we say trunk too.
I loved reading about John! And he looks so friendly and approachable.
Hi Maureen,
What a sweet post! It sounds like you and your husband have a lovely relationship. Charlie is sooo cute and I would want to pet him and give him chicken too.:) The hot fudge looks so good. Thanks for sharing.
Now I’m craving an ice cream sundae! What a sweet story… you are lucky to have one another and be such a great and supportive team! 🙂
Decadent looking sauce!
Sounds like our husbands came from the same mold. Mine asked me just the other day “When was the last time we had an argument?” Neither of us could remember. 🙂 What a great outing you had and it’s so much fun running into sweet people. Your hot fudge is definitely a winner! I could pour it over lots and lots of goodies or just it eat from the jar. That’s probably what I would really do. 🙂
Your fudge sauce sounds fantastic Maureen but your husband even better. A good man is worth way more than a pot of gold! You are truly blessed as am I and I’m thankful every day!
A lovely story and an even lovelier sauce…I think I must go make some NOW; right after I call my daughter and tell her to bring home some vanilla ice cream! Thanks.
Love the photo of John and Charlie, thanks for sharing. Glad you had some time to chill out. It is still cooooold in the Hudson Valley and snow is in the forecast for Tuesday, no ice cream for now.
Nice to see John featuring Maureen! I’m glad you took a little time out. That looks like a lovely way to spend a few hours in the afternoon.
Mmm hot fudge sauce! Can I just have a bowl of sauce? Ok maybe with a little ice-cream too.
It is so nice to meet John and loved your little story. Your chocolate sauce looks so rich and delicious. I can’t get my mind off of it. Take Care, BAM
It sounds like an afternoon on the picnic rug was well deserved. I oink you are busier than most. The ice-cream and chocolate fudge looks delicious!! I have never found the perfect fudge sauce so I will have to give it a try!
… I have any problems at times too :/
Oh Maureen, you just know how to make my mouth water. I want that! And how lovely is Charlie! x
Haha if I wrote a post about my other half, I’d probably have heaps of less than favourable things to say about him! (only kidding… sort of).
I’ve heard you talk about John every now and then but without knowing too much about him, it was great to learn a bit more about your other half.
PS. Curious to hear what posh school in Melbourne he went to!
How nice to meet your John! Lovely post, Maureen, and I love the elderly couple who found so much joy in playing with Charlie! xx PS. Sauce sounds divine…
Thank you for sharing your amazing husband with us. I am blessed as well with an amazing patient husband and he was my rock when dad passed last year and is the same now during moms cancer . You are in inspiration daily to me . Thanks Maureen
This is looking really really good. Do you think it will work without corn syrup? can I replace it with sugar or something else?
I’m all over this recipe! Sounds like you made this just for me – it’s perfect. Love the photos and the dog story. Have a great week – so jealous of the sunshine! We had snow in Virginia last night – yuck.
It was lovely to hear this story Maureen. You are very lucky to have a resident programmer ( PS thanks for the easy recipe) and love of your life. Thats one thing I miss having someone to go to the park with the dog, with. Hot fudge sauce is a decadence we can all handle , more often than we should
You had me at Fudge, but what a wonderful story! I’m surely socking this recipe back!
Hi Deb, I’m so glad you stopped by!
Thanks for the story and for the huge ice cream craving I am now having 🙂
sorry to be a bother.. ice cream’s good 🙂
Maureen, what a pleasure reading about your outing with John & Charlie! I also enjoyed hearing how you & John met (you brave souls!) and the touching story about Charlie & his new friends. A day away from “I should’s” restores body, mind & soul. So does a dish of ice cream with your hot fudge sauce. 🙂
Kimby you are not wrong on all counts. If I told someone today I was going 10,000 miles for my first date they might roll their eyes but in 1994 people thought I was a raving lunatic. 🙂
So lovely to meet you John! You mentioned about him, but right, we never actually seen him till now. I love the little surprise in this post. 😉 Ice cream with hot fudge sauce? YUM!
I know how I felt the first time we saw your husband on your blog. 🙂
Hot. Fudge. Sauce. Those three words are really all I needed. 🙂
some people got for I love you, you and I will stick with hot fudge sauce 🙂
I’m so glad you introduced to your man today. 🙂 He has such a kind and wonderful face. No wonder you love him! 🙂
Krista, I love this man for how he treats me and how he makes me feel. I’m his complete equal and he’s my biggest fan.