Chocolate Sauce For Meringue Gelato Cake

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Nigella's Meringue Gelato Cake With Chocolate Sauce is a type of ice cream made with cream, meringues and liqueur, that is served with a warm chocolate sauce. The sauce is a type of ganache, made with dark (bittersweet) chocolate and double (heavy/whipping) cream. A ganache will be quite liquid when it is warm but will thicken as it cools and should be fairly solid when refrigerated. The sauce should be easily pourable and if you want a thicker sauce then you may need to let it cool more.

The thickness of the ganache can be affected by the quality of the chocolate, so use a good quality chocolate that preferably has minimum 70% cocoa solids (68% for US bittersweet chocolate). If the ganache looks grainy or greasy then it could have been overheated, though the method of removing the pan from the heat before all of the chocolate has melted should prevent this. But make sure that the pan is over a low heat and that the cream does not boil. If the ganache is smooth and you would like a thicker sauce then you could add a little more chocolate, but don't increase the chocolate by more than an extra 125g as otherwise the sauce will be very thick.