Chocolate Fudge Sauce—No Corn Syrup
Thick, rich & chocolatey, this easy, one-pan chocolate fudge sauce is perfect to top desserts or keep in the refrigerator for sundaes. Honey sweetened even. 
I love it when I discover a new recipe by accident. This time, it started when I needed a fudge sauce for my upcoming Coffee Fudge Ice Cream pie.
The pie is so rich that I needed a chocolate sauce that could hold its own. Years ago, I made a chocolate syrup (also corn syrup free) similar to the tasty, thinner Hershey’s syrup. It was perfect to keep in the refrigerator for kid’s chocolate milk and impromptu sundaes. But now I was looking for something thick and well,… fudgy. 
Remembering a delicious hot fudge sauce from my childhood I decided to grab something pre-made from the grocery store. Since there wasn’t a lot of choice, I took what they had.
This was not a good decision.
There was almost no taste of chocolate… perhaps because the first two ingredients were corn syrup, then high fructose corn syrup.
Good for dipping!
And so, I made my own. The recipe is based on one from Smitten Kitchen, after I looked about a dozen recipes online (yes, everything turns into a research project). It was super tasty and easy—a one pan recipe in fact! And so good it made up for tossing the whole purchased jar into the trash.
One pan recipe!
After making my pie, I made a second batch of chocolate fudge sauce so my husband (who won’t go near anything flavored with coffee) could have a treat as well.
Later I caught him confiding to our house guest that Chocolate Fudge Sauce was a perk of marrying a food blogger–and it even made up for doing the cleanup.
More fudge sauce for him!
Mmm!
Chocolate Fudge Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 Tablespoon butter
- 1/8 teaspoon salt optional
- 1/4 cup whipping cream or 1/3 cup--see note
- 2 Tablespoons honey
- 2 Tablespoons cocoa powder
- 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips or bittersweet, 3 ounces
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Melt butter in a small saucepan, then whisk in cream, honey and salt. Bring just to a boil over medium-low heat.
- Add chocolate chips, and whisk until completely melted.
- Remove from heat and whisk in cocoa and vanilla. Whisk until no lumps remain, returning to low heat, if needed. Serve warm. Store leftovers in refrigerator.
- To reheat sauce, warm in a saucepan on low, stirring constantly, or microwave in short bursts, stirring in between. Do not boil.
Can you tell me the amount of salt? I’m seeing it in the directions but not the actual recipe
Thanks!
Good catch Kathy. I went and checked out the original recipe and they used 1/8 teaspoon (after adjusting for size). They did use unsalted butter but there isn’t a lot of butter in this. So I’d say 1/8 teaspoon and have updated the recipe to reflect this. Thanks for letting me know.
I loved reading this post, Inger! I’m glad to know you live with someone who won’t touch coffee-flavored things – I am the same way! (My tiramisu is coming soon! No coffee!) I also love that our fudge sauces are fairly similar. Mine was born on a morning when I added bit too much milk to my sugar and cocoa one morning. I start by making a slurry of the three to form a thick paste, emulsifying the cocoa. Well, with too much milk, it doesn’t mix well. So I microwaved it to see if that would help – and it did, and it was really trashy! And it also created the beginning of my chocolate sauce. I like to say that “accidents will happens – and sometimes it’s a good thing!”
Here’s to lucky accidents David!