Chocolate Sauce

This is great to have on hand for unexpected company, for your children’s friends, or for yourself after a rough day. A chef in New England gave me the recipe. You can’t taste the maple syrup, but the addition makes the sauce seductively smooth.

INGREDIENTS

2 oz. unsweetened chocolate

4 tablespoons pure cocoa powder

4 tablespoons butter

1 cup sugar

3 tablespoons hot water

1 tablespoon pure maple syrup

In a medium bowl over hot but not boiling water, melt chocolate, cocoa powder, and butter. Blend thoroughly. Gradually add sugar, beating well after each addition to melt the sugar into the chocolate mixture. Keep the water hot as you add the sugar. When all the sugar has been blended in and melted, remove the bowl from the pan. If the mixture is stiff, add hot water, a little at a time, until it reaches the right consistency. Add maple syrup; blend thoroughly. The sauce should be smooth and satiny and come off the spoon in a ribbon.

Put the sauce in a pretty jar and tuck it in a basket with some shortbread cookies for a perfect hostess gift. Be sure to include instructions on warming the sauce gently over hot water, or in the microwave on low power for less than a minute. The sauce will keep for at least a week without

refrigeration in case you’re traveling.

Along with it, you can easily make a maple pecan sauce for ice cream by simply decanting pure maple syrup, adding a half cup or so of toasted pecans, and bottling it up. That way there’s an ice cream topping for those strange souls who don’t like chocolate.