Chocolate Is a Chip Dip

I think I could subsist on a diet made entirely of dips. Yogurt dip for breakfast, beet dip for lunch, pimento cheese or hummus for supper. I could spend my days dipping vegetables, pieces of bread, and chips into various bowls of creamy dips, and I would be happy.

“What about dessert?” you ask. What about it, indeed. I’m a fan of both this vibrant fruit dip and a classic, nostalgic Dunkaroo, but there’s no need to get too complicated. Chocolate — namely hot fudge and the like — is a perfect dessert dip, and it is best when consumed with salty chips.

Dipping chips into a chocolate dip hits those salty and sweet notes that food writers are so fond of, but chocolate also provides a bit of bitterness, a flavour that often gets overlooked when discussing dessert. And it’s that bitterness, I think, that makes the combination so hard to put down. The pairing of textures is also incredible: Crunchy, almost brittle chips provide the backdrop for rich, velvety fudge — your mouth will never be bored again.

When choosing your chips and chocolate, you should opt for a chip that is sturdy and plain (salted kettle-cooked is best) and a chocolate that is dark. Milk chocolate is too sweet for prolonged enjoyment, and white chocolate is barely chocolate. The simple hot fudge from this blog is a good option, especially if you use unsweetened chopped chocolate bars.

Easy Hot Fudge for Chip Dipping

Ingredients:

• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/4-3/4 teaspoon salt, depending on your taste for salty-sweetness
• 170 g unsweetened chocolate, broken into bits

Combine the first three ingredients in a medium sauce pan over low heat. Add the chocolate and stir continuously as it melts to form a thick, shiny sauce. If the fudge is a bit too thick for your liking, you can add little splashes of water to thin it out. This makes a fair amount of fudge, but don’t worry: You can reheat it on the stove or in the microwave. Just heat slowly and gently and stir frequently. Serve immediately with a big bowl of salted kettle chips.