Can two ingredients save your summer?
I think abso-friggin‘-lutely! It’s not like anyone is really traveling anywhere anytime soon, so you might as well make the best of your back yard, porch or balcony. How? Well, you could start by memorizing (remember, two ingredients!) the recipe for this Homemade Chocolate Shell Ice Cream Topping. It’s exactly like the topping I used to love as a kid. Aaah, that satisfying CRACK when you hit the chocolate shell with your spoon! I made this with the kids today and had planned it out as an afternoon project, but making it was so quick and easy that it didn’t qualify as much of a project. Thank goodness they were so fascinated by the chocolate hardening and digging at the ice cream under the shell and then smashing it to bits, that it kept them busy for at least 20 minutes. Which is enough time for a cup of hot coffee and two and a half pages of my current book (“Sing, Unburied, Sing” by Jesmyn Ward, in case anyone’s interested, it’s excellent!), so it panned out VERY well for all of us!
The chocolate chip cookie cups are my regular chocolate chip cookies simply baked into a mini muffin tin. See how this summer is looking up?
xoxo Donata
Ingredients
7 ounces (200 g) semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate or chocolate chips
2 tablespoons coconut oil
Instructions
Melt the chocolate in a small metal bowl or saucepan set over a pan of simmering water. Stir in the coconut oil and heat until dissolved. Keep the chocolate mix lukewarm until ready to pour over the ice cream. Chocolate will harden into a shell within a few seconds when spooned over ice cream.
Let cool and put in an airtight container to store at room temperature if you have any leftovers. When ready to use again, heat over a water bath as you did when preparing it, or heat in the microwave in 10 second increments until lukewarm and then serve.
Recipe by Melissa Clarke, New York Times Cooking