Eating homemade whipped cream for me is a religious experience. Then I made chocolate whipped cream one night and was basically re-born. If you’ve never experienced the magic of watching plain heavy cream turn thicker until it has reach stiff peaks in the fluffiest valley, then I encourage you to grab a whisk and go to town. We are also living in the day and age where you can make whipped cream with absolutely no effort at all. Our (great) grandmother’s used a whisk and probably had more muscles than their husbands. We have electric mixers. Ah, technology how we do love you sometimes. I have only whipped cream with a whisk once (and I make it A LOT). When I was finished I promptly wanted to take a nap. Which I did, right after I licked the whisk clean.

The first time I made this was for a dinner party. I was serving a coconut layer cake that needed something. I like to turn to Lee Bailey when I need advice. Well, rather, I turn to his books. Seeing as how I didn’t know him personally (I wrote more about him here). I never even thought of adding chocolate to whipped cream. It seemed almost scandalous to me. Taint fluffy white whipped cream with a slew of chocolate? Well I’m a rebel, so I did it. Mainly because Lee has never steered me wrong. He has only ever steered me back to course.

The past few days were a little crazy. On Food52‘s Instagram this week they made something called a “Happy List”. A written out list of things that make you happy. They would repost ones that they liked. Simple enough. I have a lot of things that make me happy. It was hard to only pick a few to put together on a list, but I decided to do it. I am not an artistic person at all but decided to make some attempted illustrations to go along with the list. I posted the list on my Instgram. If you know me at all it’s such a “Hollie” list. It’s me put into bullet points. Well, they saw my list and reposted it. Another thing about me is I really love Food52 so I was very honored to be on their page. I began (and still am) receiving a lot of followers and kind words because of it. I laugh because the most liked picture on my FOOD Instagram is not of food. But it makes me happy to know people wanted to follow me because of who I am and not just what I made (I will post the list below).

Lee’s Chocolate Whipped Cream

adapted from Lee Bailey

Makes 2 cups

• 1 cup heavy cream
• 4 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1 ounce good unsweetened chocolate

1. In a double boiler (see note below), combine the chocolate, sugar, and 2 tablespoons of the cream. Stir until chocolate is fully melted. Remove the top pan/bowl from heat and whisk until cooled. Add a drop or two of cream if chocolate is too thickened (Should be consistency of photo above).
2. In a separate bowl, add the rest of the cream and whip until just beginning to thicken. Add 1/3 of the chocolate mixture. Whip until soft peaks and add another 1/3. Then, whip until just before stiff peaks and add the rest of the chocolate. Then finish whipping until stiff peaks are achieved.
3. Pour into a bowl and serve alongside your favorite dessert–Or eat as is with fresh berries. Enjoy.

Note: To make a double boiler if you do not have one, just place a heat proof bowl on top of a saucepan. Just make sure that the bottom of the bowl falls into the pan a little. The heat from the saucepan will melt the chocolate without burning it from direct exposure.