The other day I had a craving for a banana sundae - not some de-constructed re-invented gourment version, just vanilla ice cream and sliced banana, drowned in gooey chocolate sauce. So I took myself to the supermarket and, to my horror, my only choices were Cottee's or home-brand. I know I haven't bought chocolate sauce in a while but where were the Cadbury's choc fudge and Old Gold and all the others that I swear were there last time? (Deleted, the Cadbury people tell me, due to insufficient sales.) In the interests of research I went to David Jones food hall where there used to be lots of chocolate sauces to choose from but I only found six, and only one that didn't contain liqueur or other adulterations. What's going on?
Not to be put off, for this exercise I picked up two sauces from DJs that aren't liqueur-flavoured (which as far as I'm concerned is a whole other concept) plus the Cottee's. I read the label on the home-brand and decided to leave well alone.
Random Harvest Rich Chocolate Sauce 
This is very dark and thick and clings lovingly to the ice cream in a way the others don't. There's a vague liqueur-like flavour that I can only guess comes from the unspecified 'flavour' on the ingredients list, but it has a nice cocoa-ey taste that isn't cloyingly sweet.
Ogilvie Chocolate Marshmallow Sauce 
Fairly thin and lighter coloured than the others, and tastes more like milk chocolate than cocoa (not surprising given that 'chocolate fudge' is the main ingredient). It's pleasant but very sweet - more sweet than chocolatey - and you can taste the marshmallows (I know, the marshmallows confuse the issue a bit but it was the only other non-liqueur option). Overall it doesn't deliver much of a chocolate hit if that's an issue - and when is it not?!
Cottee's Thick and Rich Chocolate Flavoured Topping 
Apologies to all the people who grew up on this, but it has the same sort of weird chemically undertaste as cheap compound chocolate, with just a hint of cocoa thrown in. It also tastes floury, which takes the edge of the chocolate even more. It really just tastes sweet, with no real depth of flavour. It has a good thickness to it, though, and I'm guessing that at the price it has more to do with keeping the kids quiet than any serious grown-up chocolate craving.
OVERALL RATINGS
Random Harvest Rich Chocolate Sauce, for being the most chocolatey.
Ogilvie Chocolate Marshmallow Sauce, but it won't be chocolatey enough if you want a real hit
Cottee's Topping. I've given this an extra cupcake only because I suspect it will have nostalgia value for quite a few people.
CHOCOLATE SAUCE RECIPE
I'd be happy to eat either of the gourment sauces again, but since I'd have to make a special trip to buy them anyway, next time I'll probably just make my own. It's easy enough to melt some really good chocolate into cream - 200g to 300ml works for me. It even works with light cream, and if anybody ever noticed the difference they've always been too polite to point it out.
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