Hot Fudge Sundae (1920)
Reader ratingsA hot fudge sundae from What to Drink, Bertha Stockbridge’s 1920 book for the hostess of the dry years: vanilla ice cream under her heavy fudge sauce, kept hot in a double boiler and finished with nuts.
- Recipe makes
- 8 sundaes, with about 2¼ cups sauce
- Prep
- Cook
- Total
The sauce holds hot over barely simmering water for an hour or more; stir in a spoonful of hot milk if it thickens. Chill the glasses while it cooks.
Hot fudge sundae with walnuts.
The story behind the recipe
Bertha E. L. Stockbridge put a hot fudge sundae (in her words, chocolate fudge sauce and nuts over vanilla ice cream) in a book about drinks. Her What to Drink, published in 1920 for the hostess of the dry years, is mostly punches, syrups and shrubs without alcohol, but it gives a chapter to sundaes “Because of the popularity of sundaes, and the preference shown by many for them instead of sweet or fruit drinks.”
Never mussy
Her rules for serving are strict. The ice cream goes in first, “a rounded spoonful,” then the sauce, poured carefully so it doesn’t drip, then just enough nuts “to stay where they are meant to stay.” The glass is a sherbet glass or a wide champagne glass, set on a small plate with a doily and a spoon. “There is one important thing to remember when making sundaes; they must never look mussy!” Pecans were the usual topping, she says, but walnuts do as well, and butternuts if you can find them.
Read more about this recipe
Making it today
Her heavy fudge sauce is chocolate, milk and a great deal of sugar, cooked slowly until smooth and kept hot “in the double boiler or in a chafing dish until ready to serve.” She lists butter and vanilla but doesn’t say when they go in; we stir them in at the end. She asks for two squares of chocolate without saying which kind; her chocolate caramel sauce, four pages on, uses “2 ounces of unsweetened chocolate,” so we use 2 oz unsweetened. The sauce should pour readily, as she asks, and it firms up as it meets the cold ice cream.
Her sundaes close out the dry-years table in What Did Americans Cook When the Bars Closed in 1920?, after the Peanut Cookies (1924) from a Woman’s World summer menu.
Melt the chocolate, putting it into a double boiler; add the milk and cook directly over the fire until it is well blended; ...
Recipe makes: 8 sundaes, with about 2¼ cups sauce
Ingredients
For 8 sundaes, with about 2¼ cups sauce. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for 8 sundaes, with about 2¼ cups sauce.
Heavy fudge sauce
- Unsweetened chocolate, chopped2 oz
- Whole milk1 cup
- Sugar2 cups
- Unsalted butter1 1/2 tbsp
- Vanilla extract1/2 tsp
Sundaes
- Vanilla ice cream4 cups
- Walnuts or pecans, chopped1/2 cup
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 2 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped
- 1 cup whole milk
- 2 cups sugar
- 1½ tbsp unsalted butter
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 4 cups vanilla ice cream
- ½ cup walnuts or pecans, chopped
Equipment
- Double boiler with a metal top pan, or a small heavy saucepan set over a larger pan of simmering water
Wooden spoon- 8 sherbet glasses or wide stemmed glasses
- 8 small plates and doilies
- Ice cream scoop
Instructions
Put the chocolate in the top of the double boiler over simmering water and stir until melted.
Stir in the milk. Lift the top pan off the water and set it directly over low heat, stirring until the chocolate and milk are smoothly blended and steaming.
Add the sugar and keep stirring over low heat for 8 to 10 minutes, until the sugar has dissolved and the sauce is smooth and glossy and has just begun to bubble at the edges. Don’t let it boil hard.
Take the pan off the heat and stir in the butter and vanilla. Set the pan back over the simmering water to keep hot until you serve.
Put a rounded scoop of ice cream in each glass. Spoon the hot sauce carefully over the top, scatter on a few nuts, and set each glass on a plate with a doily and a spoon.
Nutrition
460calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- 8 sundaes, with about 2¼ cups sauce
- Servings
- 8
Estimated per sundae from USDA FoodData Central values for the listed ingredients.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
About a generous ¼ cup of sauce and ½ cup of ice cream to each sundae.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.
Leftover sauce keeps in the refrigerator for a week and sets firm; warm it over hot water with a spoonful of milk. Stockbridge also uses the sauce on puddings. Contains milk; the nuts are tree nuts.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
After Bertha E. L. Stockbridge, What to Drink (New York and London: D. Appleton and Company, 1920), Heavy Fudge Sauce and Sundaes
Recipe details
- Course
- Dessert
- Dish family
- Desserts & Sweets
- Region
- American
- Era
- Interwar
- Source decade
- 1920s
- Event
- Prohibition, 1920
- Main ingredient
- Chocolate
- Difficulty
- Easy