Hot Fudge For Cold Hearts
make a sundae about it
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Sometimes you just don’t win the day.
Today (Sunday, the night I’m writing this Substack) was such a day. Nothing was quantifiably wrong - we had a really nice day in fact - but also I spilled the entire juice of a raw chicken down myself, my kitchen floor, and my cabinets. An hour before, at the grocery store, they were out of every basic thing that you thought you could rely on a grocery store to have. I had to pop a squat in front of the produce bin and snake my arm under the shelving to find a few neglected-looking crowns of broccoli. All in the heck I was trying to do was eat my vegetables, and I had to grovel for that. The other things I needed were in stock but outrageously priced; have you ever in your life spent $25 on two half-hearted bags of pistachios? We just did.
I started my period.
The pharmacy didn’t have my prescription ready.
I dreamed all night about a party of German nuns taking off their wimples and sitting down for a chat; their surprising hairstyles and the Mother Abbess’s spray-tan were the details that most stand out to me. (This may have been an interesting dream but it ruined the quality of my sleep.)
The movie made me cry.
The weather gave me a headache.
I felt haunted by three baskets of unfolded laundry lurking off the end of our bed.
You know; just one of those days.
For six months I have been craving a hot fudge sundae. Now, don’t hear that wrong: it is a normal food craving. I am not pregnant. Due to my own uncareful wording in a recent Instagram story, several people innocently mistook it for an announcement, and that also made me sad because I am just about the least-pregnant person on the planet right now. (See: on my period) Don’t feel bad if you were one of the people who misunderstood - I’m so glad we have so many people that will be excited with us one day when I actually am pregnant, and not just hungry and full of hormones.
Anyway, hot fudge.
The hot fudge that I have been craving is not the kind that comes in a jar off the end of the ice cream aisle at the grocery store, full of corn syrup and false promises. I’ve been craving real hot fudge. A couple years back Jeni Britton Bauer (founder of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams) shared a recipe on her Instagram account, and though I didn’t make any at the time, the words, “I need to make Jeni’s hot fudge,” have taken up real estate in my brain. I keep wanting this sundae and I keep not making the fudge. But today was the day. Today I needed some hot fudge sundae in my life.
Nutrition and exercise have been strong the past couple weeks and I love that for me. But the best part about leading a non-restrictive food life is that when you’re eating all the delicious foods that add health to your life, moving your body in joyful ways, trying to hit all your nutrition marks per your unique requirements, you can also decide that a homemade hot fudge sundae is part of your nutritional requirements.
And guys? A hot fudge sundae is part of this week’s nutritional requirements. This recipe is super simple. It requires only the ingredients many of you will already have in your pantry (water, sugar, cocoa, dark chocolate), and comes together in a couple minutes. It’s unfussy, and I like that about it because today has been a fussy day. The recipe is easily memorized too because it’s a 1-1-1-1 ratio and very scalable because of this fact. We already know that Jeni Britton Bauer is a genius because Jeni’s ice cream is the G.O.A.T. (Ask me my personal ranking of Jeni’s flavors - I’d love to share). And now this hot fudge recipe is the feather in the Jeni Empire’s cap. I am bastardizing this whole experience by having her hot fudge over Tillamook chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream because it’s more in my budget category after that pistachio purchase, but I digress. Jeni is great, and we are lucky to have her ice cream.
Here’s the recipe. Hot fudge for cold hearts. Get with it - everybody’s doing it. It’s a club now.
Jeni’s Hot Fudge Sauce
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup chopped dark chocolate
In a small saucepan, bring water and sugar to a boil until sugar is dissolved.
Whisk in cocoa powder till smooth. Add a bit more water if it’s looking too thick, as different types of cocoa powder will absorb the water differently.
Whisk in dark chocolate till shiny, then ladle into a jar and keep in fridge after use. Warm up before next use!