easy espresso hot fudge recipe

i feel a little ironic writing about a hot fudge recipe the day after my son $hit all over me at the hospital check in. i’m sorry also that i’m about to tell the poo poo story before i write about food but meh, real life right?

so yesterday we had our check in with the neurological doctor. basically they track any baby that has had early life trauma. i guess open heart surgery qualifies for that. but it’s nice to have a set of eyes that belong to a doctor checking in on his development and milestones. which by the way the kid is nailing. except for that whole rolling over thing but he’s stubborn and smart and hates tummy time.

anyway i had him all dressed up for the doctor. baby khakis, button up, hat he was ready for a business meeting. his outfit said, i’m a baby but i take this job seriously.

if you are local and familiar with the childrens hospital you will know that the best cafeteria is the one in Helen Devos and their pizza is pretty delightful. so every time we have an appointment there we go get pizza for lunch. we are sitting there eating our pizza and otto is being ADORABLE. babbling looking around all the cute things. so naturally i pick him up and hold him upright against me. he’s looking around making faces. we run into one of our nurses that took care of us while we were in recovery back in october. we start talking and i can sense that otto has poo’d himself. so i excuse myself to go change him before we head into the doctor.

i place him on the changing table only to discover i have poo all on my arm, down my side and a good big heap on my stomach. i then look at otto and the entire front of him is covered in poop. i sit there a second looking at him, he looking at me wondering how the heck we are going to take care of this. luckily it was a beautiful day and we went for a walk downtown before our appointment and i had packed myself a sweatshirt. it was like the airline pilots say put your mask on before you assist others. seemed like a good idea. i took off my short and rolled it inside out to not scatter poo in more places. i wiped myself down and then went to work stripping down the otto tot. a good 20 minutes later we were both baby wipe fresh and ready to go. otto in his pajamas and me in an old sweatshirt. we went from business casual to just rolled out of bed in a matter of minutes. joe was frantically calling wondering where we were and if we were ok. luckily the man had enough sense to get us starbucks while otto and i took care of business.

so there you go, there is our poo story. regardless of being probably ten pounds lighter post poo otto weighed in at 17lbs 11oz and is right on track with his development. felt good to have an appointment where there was nothing new to address.

ok so back to the recipe. hot fudge. it is still winter so it’s still technically ok to be working on winter body. i made brownies the other day for watching the bachelor and instead of frosting i though ice cream and hot fudge would be simply delightful. i found this original recipe on smitten kitchen which proved to be very simple. she added peanut butter to hers which sounds just as delightful as espresso. there is something about coffee and chocolate that just seems so refined and delightful. oh wait, because it is. so here is what you need. (mind you this makes quite a bit but it will last over a month in the fridge).

2tbsp unsalted butter
2/3 cups of heavy cream
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (i used hershey brand)
1/4 tsp salt
6 oz of milk chocolate (I only had valentines day hershey kisses on hand and they worked perfect)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp instant espresso powder

in a saucepan over medium heat add butter, cream, syrup, sugar, cocoa powder and salt. whisk until combined. bring to a simmer for 3 – 5 minutes careful not to let it burn. remove from the heat and add the espresso powder and whisk. then add the chocolate and vanilla stir until melted. you can eat it right away but i like to let it cool a bit because it thickens as it cools. i pour into a jar or container though because once it’s completely cool… you could eat it like spoon fudge which is also delicious. i scoop out what i need from the jar and let it come to room temp or heat up in microwave again.

enjoy!

original recipe can be found here. 

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