Lighter chocolate sauce

We recently returned home from vacation, having had a great time in a land of sunshine, palm trees, and turquoise seas.  It's so good to get away...and for a few days, I just stared at this...

and lounged around looking at this...

It's so good to be on vacation, with someone else to cook your meals and clean your room.  It also seems like an excellent excuse to eat more ice cream -I mean, is it me or does Ben & Jerry's ice cream just taste even better on the road?  Well, the trip was a blast but believe it or not, I missed my little kitchen and kept thinking of all the things I wanted to make when I got home.  I have developed a serious sweet tooth!

So here we go! 

To honor all the ice cream we ate while on vacation, I thought I'd make a chocolate sauce that I've wanted to try for some time.  When I first received David Lebovitz's book, Ready for Dessert, I tagged a number of recipes I wanted to try.  I've already made a few of them but this is another entry that caught my eye right away.  It's a bittersweet chocolate sauce.

As much as I love chocolate, it's no surprise that the words "chocolate sauce" would get my attention.  But what really did it was the fact that this particular sauce has no cream or butter in it (thus, the "lighter" label) and I am always on the lookout for ways to lighten things up a little so I can have more of it.  Seriously, though, this recipe for bittersweet chocolate sauce is so easy to make, requires just 5 ingredients, and you can keep it around for a couple of weeks in the fridge for when you'd like some over your ice cream or a slice of cake. 

I love a hot fudge sundae!  As a kid, I loved the one from McDonald's...you know the one with vanilla ice cream and hot fudge and you can get peanuts in a little packet.  Who am kidding - I still love it.  As with any sundae, I think the chocolate sauce is the best part, although the crunchy peanut topping comes in at a close second for me.  I had to make myself a little one today.