Yummy Chocolate Sauce

Not so long ago, you might remember that there was an occasion on which Baby had to sit and watch the rellies eat a chocolate brownie right in front of her. If you didn't catch that post, you might like to read about it here. What she saw that day, looked not dissimilar to this:

Looking good? All dairy free!

These, of course, are not made with dairy. It's our dairy free take on what she missed out on, that day.

We often try to compensate when Baby misses out. I'm not quite sure whether that's what The Hub had mind, but, not long after that occasion, he found a Hale and Hearty Chocolate Brownie Mix, in Planet Organic, and decided to make them with her. So, one Saturday, out came the mix and before long there was a tray of chocolate brownies ready to be eaten. 

Mmm! Chocolate Brownies!!

They were pretty good chocolate brownies, too, but I couldn't help thinking they were missing something - something to add a certain 'Je ne sais quoi,' a topping of some kind. 

'A hot chocolate sauce,' I thought, 'would be perfect!!'

After a bit of hunting on Google, during which I came across quite a few recipes (both dairy free and otherwise) I came across this one, which I decided looked good, purely on the basis that it seemed really simple - just four ingredients; chuck 'em all in a pan; stir them for a bit and et voila... Bob's your uncle!! What could possibly be simpler than that? 

It wasn't a dairy free recipe, but you can find substitutes for most things.

The recipe called for chocolate - well that wasn't too hard to trace - there's usually a bar of Kinnerton's somewhere in the cupboard! I usually get mine from Sainsbury's. The only problem I had was that the recipe called for more than the amount of chocolate that I had. 

I like to keep a bar of this in my cupboard for... emergencies :)

Not needing too much sauce, anyway, I decided to halve the amounts of all the ingredients in the recipe. Unfortunately, there was a few squares of chocolate left over, so naturally, I had to dispose of those - you can probably guess how!!

Now Kinnerton's chocolate is quite dark. If you prefer a milkier chocolate, you might like to use Moo Free, although it is a bit pricier than Kinnerton's.

75g in the pan, which left 10g over for me to... share with Baby.

Also required, for this recipe was some cream. I'm pretty sure most dairy free substitute creams would work - whether the soya cream produced by Alpro, or the oat one made by Oatly. 

Not being able to have either of those, I needed an alternative. It seemed the perfect opportunity to use a small carton of Ecomil almond cream, that I'd been keeping in the cupboard. I'd only used it for toppings before. They sell his in my health food shop, but it's also available online at Goodness Direct, among other places.

It was easier to measure 1/4 of a cup than halve 125mls!

Well, it took no time at all to make the sauce. It really was simple to make. Baby and I enjoyed it tremendously, with brownie and ice cream. It kept rather nicely in a small jug in the fridge and went rather well with our Shrove Tuesday pancakes!! 

All four ingredients in the pan. What could be easier?

I'm definitely going to make this sauce again, only, having found that Lyle's Butterscotch syrup (that was also on our pancakes) went rather well with it, I might just make a slight adjustment to the recipe!! 

Other Posts:
Bessant and Drury's Dairy Free Ice Cream
A pud would be good
So how do you like yours? Pancakes!!