Who knew chocolate fondue could be so easy? Photo courtesy of Dalboz17 on Flickr.
While chocolate fondue isn’t quite difficult to make, it involves tempering chocolate and all that jazz–which, let’s face it, can kind of be a pain. But, while working on my cookbook, The I Love Trader Joe’s College Cookbook, I discovered a quick, practically fool-proof way to get chocolate fondue the easy way. And that’s by melting chocolate chips and chocolate syrup together. The chocolate syrup from Trader Joe’s is already a pretty good quality–that’s what helps the most. Also, make sure to use a good-quality brand of chocolate chips. This is a quick way to impress a loved one with your (ahem) chocolate culinary talents. Just make sure to hide the chocolate syrup bottle, ok?
Chocolate Fondue
Yield: 2 servings
Accompaniments like sliced strawberries, banana chunks, pound cake pieces, marshmallows, etc
1/2 cup Chocolate syrup, like Trader Joe’s Organic Midnight Moo Chocolate Flavored Syrup
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, divided
1. Cut the fruit and other accompaniments into bite-size pieces. Arrange them on a plate.
2. In a small microwave-safe bowl, stir together the chocolate syrup and 1/4 cup chocolate chips. Microwave on high until melted, 1 to 1 1/2 minutes (depending on the strength of your microwave).
3. Remove from the microwave and stir in the remaining 1/4 cup chocolate chips.
4. Place into a fondue pot to keep warm. Serve, dipping the fruit and cake pieces into the fondue with toothpicks or fondue forks.
Syrup doesn’t have the consistancy you need for dipipng chocolate as it’s too runny. You need something a bit thicker to stick to the treats that you want to dip.Here’s my favorite homemade recipe for fondue/dipipng chocolate.You need 1 pound of good chocolate milk, semi-sweet, dark. Do not use baker’s chocolate Scharffen Berger is the best but it a bit pricey. Ghiardelli makes great chocolate too. Personally, a nice flavor balance is semi-sweet and dark chocolate. So, of you want that combination, get 1/2 lb. of each flavor.1/2 cup heavy cream2 tablespoons favorite liqueur-Amaretto, Irish Cream, Kahlua(the alcohol is optional. if you don’t use it, substitute vanilla extract)Put all ingredients into a bowl and sit it on top of a double boiler. A double boiler, basically is a pot with simmering water on the heating element with the bowl of ingredients resting on top. I just use a pot to cook soup in and place a metal bowl on top of the simmering water. Be careful and use a potholder to hold the bowl. Once you have the bowl heated, you will see the chocolate start to melt. Take a whisk and whisk the ingredients together over the simmering water. Once it’s melted, take it off the heat and then use a spoon to blend all the flavors together. Pour into a bowl and enjoy. If you have a fondue pot or another pot that can stay heated via a sterno can or tealight candle, that would be ideal.Enjoy!References :