Chocolate Fondue

Recipe from Laura Bilodeau Overdeck

Adapted by Ligaya Mishan

Updated Jan. 31, 2024

Chocolate Fondue
Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Sue Li. Prop Stylist: Sophia Eleni Pappas
Total Time
10 minutes
Prep Time
5 minutes
Cook Time
5 minutes
Rating
4(132)
Comments
Read comments

Chocolate fondue is not a traditional dessert but a creation of the 1960s, first conjured up at Chalet Suisse, an alpine-themed restaurant in New York, by Konrad Egli, a Swiss chef and restaurateur far from home. This version is a simple equation of chocolate and heavy cream — essentially ganache, but in different proportions. Warm the cream, pour it over the chocolate and stir. A touch of salt brings the flavor into focus. You don’t need a fondue pot or even a double boiler: Just jury-rig a heatproof rack over a candle, or fill a pot or bowl with boiling water and tuck a smaller bowl inside it. (The key is not to melt the chocolate directly over flame, as this may result in scorching or a grainy, broken mixture.) Serve with whatever you think a little gilding with chocolate makes better: maybe bright crescents of clementines, candied yuzu peel, chewy stubs of mochi, butter-heavy pound cake or whole strawberries like fat little hearts. —Ligaya Mishan

Featured in: A Chocolate Fondue to Remember

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Ingredients

Yield:2 servings
  • 4ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
  • ¼cup heavy cream
  • Pinch of salt
  • Items for dipping, such as fresh fruit (whole strawberries, bananas cut on the diagonal or clementine wedges); candied orange or yuzu peel; pieces of mochi; shortbread cookies, biscotti or graham crackers; madeleines or hunks of pound cake
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (2 servings)

391 calories; 28 grams fat; 17 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 8 grams monounsaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 42 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams dietary fiber; 35 grams sugars; 4 grams protein; 88 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Set up a fondue pot, if you have one. If you don’t, set a heatproof rack — one that can securely hold a small heatproof bowl — over a candle or can of heating fuel (such as Sterno). Or, take a pot or bowl large enough to fit a small heatproof bowl inside it and fill with boiling water; the water should reach about halfway up the outside of the small bowl once it’s set inside the pot.

  2. Step 2

    Put the chocolate in your fondue pot or small heatproof bowl. Heat the cream in a small saucepan over medium until steaming and bubbling around the edges. Pour over the chocolate, add the salt and stir gently until smooth.

  3. Step 3

    Set the chocolate over the heat source and serve immediately, with items of your choice for dipping.

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Ratings

4 out of 5
132 user ratings
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Comments

JP in CO

We always add a tablespoon of Grand Marnier, Kahlua, bourbon, or whatever happens to be in the liquor cabinet, except when we make it for the grandchildren.

Hillary

The Swiss Cookbook had a memorable chocolate fondue made from cream and Toblerone bars.

SarahH

I wonder if the place Ligaya Mishan had the chocolate fondue was La Fondue in mid-town. It delighted me as a kid in the 80's and saved my sanity a few times in the 90's when my gen X life was so awful that only a bowl of cheese and/or chocolate shared with too many friends squeezed around a little table would do.

Stina

It’s a bit bland and cold. The chocolate melts but it’s too thick and needs more time to heat up. Disappointing.

Vanessa C.

This works as an elevated camping dessert! Just put the ingredients into a small metal bowl or pot and set it over the grill of a campfire that is dying out. Stir vigorously and dip fruit on skewers. Also complementary to making s'mores, as you can smear the chocolate on the graham crackers.

Anna Stambo

Used a bag of semi sweet, used 1/4 cup of Baileys and 1/2 cup of cream- fantastic!

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Credits

Adapted from Laura Bilodeau Overdeck

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