Dream Gingerbread

One of my favorite books is Victorian Cakes, by Caroline B. King (Boston: Addison Wesley Publishing Company, 1988), a food writer's memoir of her childhood in a well-to-do household in 1880's Chicago.

I can't find my copy of the book right now, but, if memory serves, one of the chapters is entitled, "Dream Gingerbread." According to family lore, one of Caroline's aunts or great-aunts had a dream in which a gingerbread recipe came to her; she rose and baked the cake that very night. The cake was wonderful.

I feel obliged to remark that mine is an elderly memory and does not, in fact, always serve. Lately, I got near the end of a spy thriller when I realized that I had read it before, the first time as a stand-alone and not the fourth in a series.

In any case, please let me give you my recipe for Dream Chocolate Sauce, which came to me a few years ago and is, if I do say so myself, quite wonderful.

Dream Chocolate Sauce

1/2 cup butter, unsalted preferred.

(I can manage to choke down the sauce I made yesterday with salted butter, however.)

12-oz. bag Nestle's Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips.

(Mea culpa. I know my taste in chocolate should be more sophisticated, but I crave the chocolates of my childhood, Nestle's Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips and Hershey's Milk Chocolate with Almonds, henceforth with no apology.)

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream, organic preferred.

In a medium saucepan over warm or very low heat, combine butter and chocolate chips, stirring occasionally until they are melted together. Add the cream and stir in; warm briefly. Serve over ice cream or sneak a spoonful when you are alone in the kitchen.

Hmm. Let's see. I am not a recipe writer, but I would say this makes about a cup and a half of sauce.

Gently rewarm the sauce for each use. You can heat the container of sauce in the microwave for 10 to 30 seconds, for starters, or you can warm it in a saucepan with some water around it over low heat, very slowly.

If you walk away and forget what you are doing, as I often do, you may notice that, when some of the liquid evaporates, the sauce crinkles when it comes into contact with cold ice cream. I haven't fooled around with the ingredients enough yet to make it happen reliably, but that is good too.