How To Make Chocolate Sauce (Sauces) In The Microwave

Hi, I'm Jennifer Marshall Jenkinson, Chairman of the UK Microwave Technology Association and author of the prize-winning cookbook "Microwave Magic: The Art of 21st Century Cooking". And today I'm going to show you how to make sauces in the microwave, and the sauce I've chosen to make, first of all, is a chocolate custard. And again, what can be easier than making a sauce in the microwave? So, chocolate sauce.

I've got here half a pint of milk. I'm adding to that one tablespoon of corn flour; two tablespoons of sugar (this can be granulated sugar, white granulated, castor: anything you like); and one tablespoon of cocoa powder. All I'm going to do now is give the ingredients a quick stir together.

And this is going to take in total about 3 to 4 minutes to cook, stirring every 1 minute. So I've just given that a quick stir together at the moment. Let's put this in the oven.

As I say, we're going to cook it in 1 minute intervals. So it's going in the oven there there for 3 to 4 minutes in total. So there, our sauces have its first one minute cooking time, and you'll see that the milk has started to heat up, the starch grains in the corn flour have started to distribute, the cocoa here has blended throughout, and we're just given it here a good stir.

So all I want to do is put this back in the oven for another minute, and then we'll stir it again. Now I can guarantee you that you'll never, ever make a lumpy sauce again, if you cook the sauce in the microwave oven. Now I've made, as you can see, a chocolate custard today.

You can make custard with normal custard powder, or you can make a savory sauce with cheese sauce or parsley sauce in exactly the same way: or even your gravy, or a sauce to go with the roast meat. Because there's no direct heat source, the actual sauce itself doesn't ever stick to the pan, and it won't burn. And also, if the phone rings, or the front door bell goes, you can actually leave the sauce where it is and it won't overcook, burn or stick to the sides of the pan.

A quick stir every 1 minute and I can guarantee that your finished result will never, ever have any lumps in it ever again. There's a second minute, so let's have another look at the oven. Right, you can see that the sauce is coming together now.

It has had two minutes: another quick stir just to make sure they're definitely no lumps here, back in the oven for another minute, and I think the sauce will be almost cooked at that stage. And there's the end of our third minute, and I think we'll find in this case that the sauce is cooked to perfection. There we are: we have a lovely chocolate sauce there, cooked in 3 minutes, in the microwave without a lump in sight.

So whether it's a custard, a cheese sauce, a savory sauce or a gravy - guaranteed lump-free if you've made your sauce in the microwave.
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