This 2-Ingredient Hot Fudge Is My Family’s Ticket to Ice Cream Heaven

All you need is two pantry ingredients.

My kids are officially on summer break, which means three things: doing five pages of their Kumon workbooks every morning, daily trips to our local pool, and eating our weights' worth of ice cream. We would all agree that ice cream is the highlight of summer. And according to my six-year-old, the point of having ice cream is the toppings. (I strongly agree!) So every June, I buy a giant container of sprinkles to last us all summer long and make my 2-ingredient hot fudge.

Growing up in Paraguay, Hershey's chocolate syrup was an expensive import my parents couldn't afford. Luckily, I have a resourceful mom who'd reach into our cupboard, find two ingredients—sweetened condensed milk and baking cocoa—and whip them into gooey sweet goodness that put the store-bought stuff to shame.

Though I made it just as my mom did for years, recently I tried using chocolate chips instead of cocoa powder after a friend recommended it and I am not looking back. This is the easiest, glossiest, and tastiest homemade hot fudge I've ever had. It's no wonder our summers are filled with ice cream sundaes.

The Easiest 2-Ingredient Homemade Hot Fudge Recipe

This recipe yields about three cups of hot fudge. Here's what you need:

• 1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk

• 1 1/2 cups (200g) dark or unsweetened chocolate chunks or chips

Place the sweetened condensed milk and chocolate in a medium, microwave-safe bowl. Microwave for 1 minute and stir well with a rubber spatula. The chocolate likely won’t be fully melted, so microwave for 30 seconds to 1 minute until it does.

This yields a thick, tar-like but pourable hot fudge that will thicken as it sits or the moment it hits the ice cream. My family prefers it this way—it's so luscious, and we love how the chocolate clings to our spoons and tongues.

If you prefer it runnier, add 2 tablespoons of water and stir, stir, stir. You can go up to 1/4 cup of water, but no more. Otherwise, you’ll end up with chocolate milk. There’s enough fat in the sweetened condensed milk, so I promise the chocolate will not seize. After stirring in the water, pop the bowl back in the microwave for 30 seconds. Then stir it to make sure you get a glossy hot fudge.

Tip

You can do this on the stovetop instead. Add the two ingredients in a small pot set over medium-low heat. Stir it occasionally until the chocolate is fully melted.

Make It as Sweet as Your Sweet Tooth Desires

Sweetened condensed milk is plenty sweet so I prefer dark or unsweetened chocolate chips or a bar chopped into chunks—Trader Joe’s Pound Bar Dark Chocolate is my go-to cooking chocolate. Milk, semi-sweet, and bitter-sweet chocolate will give you a much sweeter hot fudge. Still delicious, just sweeter.

How To Store Homemade Hot Fudge

I transfer the hot fudge into a squeeze bottle because I've learned that it's the easiest way to ensure my kids don't serve themselves too much at once. Plus, it's less messy than using a spoon to scoop it out of a jar and onto the ice cream.

Stick the leftovers in the fridge for four or five days. The hot fudge will stiffen in the cold and will no longer be pourable, so I fill a tall cup with hot water and let the squeeze bottle sit in it for a few minutes. Unless you store yours in a glass container, I would not recommend microwaving the squeeze bottle. They're typically not microwave-safe.

Read the original article on Simply Recipes.