Homemade Chocolate Sauce Recipe - Savory Nothings (2024)

FAQs

How do you keep chocolate sauce from hardening? ›

Add Alcohol. Liquors like rum, brandy, or liqueurs can prevent chocolate from hardening too fast, ideal for dessert sauces. By incorporating these simple strategies into your chocolate adventures, you can maintain that glossy, luxurious texture even as your chocolate masterpiece cools down.

Cornstarch – helps thicken the mixture into a thick hot chocolate sauce. Water – loosens up the sugar, cocoa, and cornstarch into a sauce. Butter – adds flavor and helps create a silky texture. Vanilla – sweetens and deepens the chocolate flavor.

To thin melted chocolate, add a small amount of neutral oil, like vegetable oil or cocoa butter, stirring gently until it reaches the desired consistency. Melt slowly to avoid overheating, and keep water out to prevent the chocolate from seizing.

You don't add ingredients to chocolate to make it harden, you temper it by heating it to a specific temperature, cooling it to another temperature, then heating it again. This causes the chocolate to crystalize in a way that leaves it hard and shiny. The temperatures are different for different kinds of chocolate.

Use a very low heat on the stovetop and stir frequently. If using the microwave, stop to stir more frequently, every 15 seconds. Add a tablespoon of shortening. It helps thin out the chocolate a bit and prevents it from seizing up.

Fixing Seized Chocolate

This may seem counterintuitive, but the way to fix seized chocolate is to add 1 teaspoon of boiling water at a time, then mix vigorously until it becomes smooth once again. This is ideal when planning to use the chocolate for a drizzle or a sauce since the chocolate will be somewhat diluted.

Chocolate syrup is made using cocoa powder and has a thinner, stickier consistency than classic chocolate sauce. This makes it perfect for adding chocolate flavour to your hot drinks – why not turn your usual morning coffee into a delicious mocha?

Cornflour/Cornstarch: Mix a small amount with cold milk or water to create a smooth paste. Whisk this into your hot chocolate towards the end of the cooking process until it thickens. Double Cream: Stirring in a splash of double cream can instantly enrich and thicken your drink, giving it a velvety texture.

Chocolate can be safely melted with a small amount of liquid, such as milk, cream, butter, or alcohol if they are placed in the pan or bowl together (the same time). Cold liquids should never be added to melted chocolate, as they can cause the chocolate to seize.

Why do you add oil to melting chocolate? ›

Adding a tablespoon of coconut oil or vegetable oil while microwaving helps the chocolate melt more smoothly and makes it the perfect consistency for dipping! The caveat here is that once cool, the chocolate won't set up quite as hard as it did to begin with due to the added fat content.

An important step to remember: Keep the chocolate dry

Chocolate and water don't go together. Even a small splash of water in your melting chocolate will cause it to seize, becoming stiff and grainy instead of smooth and silky. And sadly, there's no way to completely undo the damage.

Some recipes call for adding butter to dipping chocolate, as for chocolate covered strawberries. This makes it shiny, but it won't set up quite the same way as tempered chocolate.

Cocoa butter is the fat that occurs in the cacao beans. But there isn't enough fat naturally in the beans to make a smooth texture, so chocolate makers add extra.

Sometimes chocolate melts to a satiny pool of liquid chocolate, and sometimes it becomes a grainy mess. Chocolate being melted, simply can't tolerate small drops of water. In this case, the steam escaping from the bottom of the double boiler is sufficient to make chocolate seize.

Seized chocolate occurs when the chocolate you're melting comes into contact with moisture. Chocolate itself doesn't contain any moisture, so adding a small amount of liquid can disrupt the melting process.

The simple reason why melted chocolate seizes is because the process of refining cocoa beans into chocolate gets rid of all the moisture, and so the final product is actually incredibly dry. When water droplets mix with melted chocolate, it has the same effect as adding water to flour—it turns into a paste.

Vegetable oil is my lifesaver and I rarely melt chocolate without it! (Don't use this with candy melts or melting chocolate though, just regular chocolate.) As a fair warning, adding vegetable oil can make it so that the chocolate doesn't harden as quickly or as hard. It can make the chocolate a bit softer.