Homemade Hot Fudge Sauce
Updated Jun 27, 2024
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This quick and easy Homemade Hot Fudge Sauce using cream, chocolate cocoa powder, butter, and vanilla makes a rich and smooth hot fudge topping for your favorite desserts.
If you’re anything like me, ice cream is its own food group. And ice cream toppings? Don’t even get me started. Sprinkles, cherries, chopped nuts, all the sweet sauces and toppings, it’s all good if you ask me. Especially as we inch closer to toasty summer days filled with sunshine and fun memories, ice cream is about to get its shining moment. And I can’t wait.
If you’ve never made hot fudge sauce, the time has come, friend, especially since this recipe is remarkably satisfying and easy to make. If you can melt stuff on a stove, you can make this hot fudge sauce. It’s a semi-sweet rendition that isn’t overpowering or too rich. It’s just a classic fudge sauce for topping ice cream, angel food cake with berries, cherry pie, or chocolate molten lava cake.
Table of Contents
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- You’ll never again have to buy pre-made hot fudge sauce at the store so you’ll save money and avoid the additives in store-bought sauce.
- Just a few basic ingredients are all it takes to make this yummy hot fudge sauce!
- This sauce is quick and easy to whip up in just a few minutes and will keep in the fridge for up to 3 weeks.
- Perfect for topping any number of desserts like wacky chocolate cobbler or chocolate peanut butter ice cream!
Recipe Ingredients
- Butter – if using salted butter, omit the salt in the recipe
- Baking chocolate – unsweetened
- Cream – also known as heavy cream or heavy whipping cream
- Sugar – regular granulated sugar
- Cocoa – I use dutch-process and love the taste
- Vanilla extract
See the recipe card below for full information on ingredients and quantities.
How to Make Homemade Hot Fudge Sauce
This classic sauce really is so easy to make and requires just a few minutes of melting and stirring the ingredients.
- Heat the butter and chocolate until melted.
- Add the cream and stir well.
- Add the sugar and the cocoa, stir, and cook for 1 minute.
- Remove from the heat, and add the salt and vanilla.
Recipe FAQs
Fudge sauce is very thick, especially when it cools to room temperature, due to the cream, sugar, and butter in it. Chocolate syrup, on the other hand, is made with unsweetened cocoa powder, corn syrup, cane sugar, water, or other ingredients that create a thinner and milder chocolate taste.
This recipe will last a good amount of time after making it. Store it in an airtight container (mason jars work well) in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks.
You can reheat hot fudge sauce in the microwave in 10-second intervals, stirring between microwave periods. To avoid potential burning, I recommend using a saucepan over medium-low heat on the stove.
Expert Tips
- Make this sauce to keep on hand during prime ice cream season since it keeps well in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks.
- Don’t buy chocolate syrup at the store—use this homemade hot fudge sauce instead. You can use a little less of this sauce than you normally would use of store-bought chocolate syrup, as this sauce has a stronger chocolate flavor.
- A very simple way to reheat is to store the sauce in a mason jar and reheat by setting the jar in a saucepan with water, over low heat, whisking inside the jar until warmed.
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Homemade Hot Fudge Recipe
Ingredients
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 1/2 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate
- 1/2 cup cream
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/3 cup dutch-process cocoa
- Pinch of salt
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Instructions
- In a medium sauce pan, heat the butter over medium heat. When it starts to melt, add the chocolate, and stir continuously until they are both melted and combined.
- Add the cream and stir well.
- Add the sugar and the cocoa, and stir to combine. Let the mixture cook for about 1 minute or until the sugar dissolved, stirring constantly.
- Remove from the heat, and add the salt and vanilla. Stir to combine.
- Use while still warm.
- Store in the fridge for up to 3 weeks, and reheat on the stove before serving.
Video
Notes
- This is a phenomenal semi-sweet chocolate hot fudge recipe. If you’d like it to be closer to a milk chocolate flavor, you can use semi-sweet or even milk chocolate in place of the unsweetened baking chocolate.
- Be sure to keep the stove temperature at medium and lower it if it starts sticking to the bottom of the pan. You don’t want to scorch your chocolate, so keep watching and stirring, and adjust the temperature as needed.
- This is splendid over ice cream and is also great over angel food cake with berries.
- A very simple way to reheat is to store the sauce in a mason jar and reheat by setting the jar in a saucepan with water, over low heat, whisking inside the jar until warmed.
I have made this hot fudge sauce several times. It is simple and delicious. I like to add about a teaspoon of instant coffee to potentiate the chocolate flavor. Thank you for the best hot fudge sauce recipe I have tried.
I’m so glad you love it as much as we do! Great tip on the instant coffee, thank you!