Hot Fudge and Bami.
I was thinking about comfort food in my sleep last night. Dreaming of mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese. Big hunks of Italian bread slathered with butter. Pure butter as my friend, D, calls it. I woke up drooling on my pillow. So I was thinking about what to make for dinner at 7 this morning. You know that means today is going to be a good day.
But the more I thought about it, the more I started thinking about my grandmother’s Hot Fudge sauce. My grandmother was my mother’s mother. I always called her Bami. My grandfather was Bumpa. Yeah – I know. Don’t judge me.
So ANYWAY! My grandmother was funny. She was kind of a crabapple… Captain pronounces this Kruh – bopp – ul… I always thought those greeting cards with the sweet grandmother making cookies were a hoot. My Bami was whatever the opposite of the sweet, demure, little old lady grandmother image that the world projects.
But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t the world’s most rockin’ grandma! She taught me a lot. Including how to make the most banging hot fudge on the planet.
And seriously, folks, who doesn’t LOVE a nice dish of hot fudge with a little ice cream? Oh. Wait isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?
I used to have this recipe written in her handwriting on a little white sheet of notepaper. Years I had this thing, tucked inside my Fannie Farmer cookbook along with a bijillion other handwritten recipes and shopping list remnants of Thanksgivings and Christmas and Easters past. It traveled with me through three moves and countless batches of Hot Fudge. THEN, I had The Bean. And I stopped being so meticulous about returning the little white slip of paper with Bami’s handwriting on it to it’s spot in the Fannie Farmer.
Then one day, it fell between the stove and the fridge. It is now lost in the depths of the crevices of Aunt Tilly’s room. Someday, I hope to recover it and return it to it’s rightful place between the Soubise Sauce and the recipe for Drawn Butter.
In the meantime, I’ll just have to make it for you from memory.
She always used a double boiler.
Wield your weapons wisely, my friends.
You don’t really need one. You can use a bowl that fits snug into one of your sauce pans. That’s fine, too. But me? I’m a creature of habit.
So you take your double boiler or double boiler “cousin” and you put water in the bottom half. In the top half, you put 4 tablespoons of butter and 4 oz. of unsweetened baking chocolate. Turn the heat on and allow the chocolate and butter to melt.
After all the pieces are melted, add 1 teaspoon of salt and 2 cups of sugar. Stir it in, slowly. The mixture will now look grainy. REALLY THICK and grainy. Don’t fret, my pets. We will remedy this situation right quick.
Add 1 14 oz. can of evaporated milk. Now, I like to add it a little bit at a time, slowly stirring it bit by bit… allowing the milk to slowly be absorbed by the chocolate/butter/sugar mixture. I add it bit by bit because I think it helps with eliminating the graininess.
It should look smooth and runny. This is what you want. Nice nice. Now, you can turn the heat down. Your water in the bottom half of the boiler has probably been boiling away. Turn the heat down to about low/medium heat. Depending on your stove, this could even be over medium heat.
Add a dash of vanilla extract and stir. You’ll want to stir this sauce periodically from now on. Now, some of you rabal rouser/non-conformist types might just want to throw some on your ice cream RIGHT NOW. And hey, if you’re impatient and need your Hot Fudge fix right now, feel free! Who am I to stop you? It’s not like I’m in your kitchen yelling at you…
But, I happen to like my fudge sauce thicker than that. So, let the fudge sit over the water on low/med heat for about 10 minutes, stirring once or twice just to make sure you get all the edges mixed in and such. But hey, if you have a pesky Bean attached to your leg, too and you don’t get back to it for ohhhhh like, an hour, no worries. So long as there’s water in the bottom of the double boiler!
Once everything is nice and smooth, remove it from the heat and put it in a serving dish or container for storage.
And Voila! Hot Fudge…YuMMMMMMmmmmY!
Hot Fudge Recipe
4 oz of unsweetened baking chocolate
4 tablespoons butter
2 cups white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 can evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1. Melt butter and chocolate together.
2. Add sugar and salt. The mixture will become very thick and grainy.
3. Slowly add the evaporated milk, stirring continuously.
4. Add vanilla and stir until smooth.
5. Allow to remain over the heat for 10-15 minutes, stirring once or twice.
6. Remove from heat and serve when ready.
