Chocolate Magic Shell

One of the many useful pieces of culinary knowledge that my grandmother introduced to me at a younge age was Nutella and the other was Magic Shell. Babi kept both in the house and Magic Shell was mine and my Grandpa’s favorite ice cream topping. Every time we shared a bowl the ice-cream eating order of operation consisted of pouring as much Magic Shell over our ice cream as was necessary to cover all of it, let it freeze and then try and peel it off the ice cream and eat it whole. Yeah, I sure was a classy kid back in the day. It was heaven.
The one time that Magic Shell made an appearance at my parents house my sister thought it needed to be refrigerated and put it back in there only for me to find and and throw an absolute temper tantrum at the fact that it was now RUINED! Ohhh the ice cream-anity! I devised a way to tear apart the plastic bottle and just chow down on the solidified chocolate like Huck on a stick, but thankfully my mom stopped me before I went all Rambo on the bottle and stabbed myself with a pair of scissors trying to extract all the chocolately glory, which was a fairly likely scenario. That was the day I thought I gave up on Magic Shell.

But no more!! America’s Test Kitchen DIY Cookbook is here to enlighten us all to DIY’ing out life and making our own Magic Shell! Not only making it on our own, but making it better than the stuff of our childhood.
From making your own Maple Bacon, to mozzarella cheese, Sriracha and Ritz style crackers this book seriously has it all. I know, I know – of course it’s easier to pick it up in the store, but DIY’ing isn’t always about whether its cheaper or easier, it’s about how it tastes and knowing that you knocked it out of the park better than a mass manufacturered mechanical implement.
It’s empowering!
Magic Shell is easy to make on your own and takes all of ten minutes – tops. That’s if you get distracted by a bumble bee.
Start with 4 ounces of chopped Semi-Sweet chocolate. I used Ghirardelli for mine. Add it into a microwave safe bowl with 1/3 cup of Coconut Oil.
Coconut oil is the magic ingredient that makes the whole shell crack. The melting point of coconut oil is 74 degrees and its solid state is at 70, so with a rapid fluctuation in temperature you can get it really solid, really quick and it crakcs like a dream unlike other emulifiers, like butter.
Melt it in the microwave for about 2 1/2 minutes on 50% power until the chocolate has just completely melted. Stir occassionally to be sure it all mixes together properly while nuking.
Once it’s all melted, whisk in 1 additional teaspoon of cocoa, 1/4 tsp vanilla extract and 1/8th teaspoon of espresso powder, with a pinch of salt. The espresso powder and salt deepen the flavor of the chocolate without adding too much of a coffee taste to it.
And that’s it! Wait thirty painfully long minutes and let it rest – then it will be ready to use. Seriously – it’s as simple as that.
Store it in an air tight container in a cupboard for up to two months. Just reheat it gently to make it pourable and you’re ready to go every time.
Beats the stuff out of the bottle any day.
America’s Test Kitchen recently released their new DIY Cookbook that is chock full of delicious recipes that you can make at home, with great photos that illustrate each step of the process and make it a cinch. And because it’s ATK you know they have done all the hard work for you, testing all of their recipes to perfection and using techniques that are easy to replicate in your own home. This makes a fantastic gift for your favorite DIY’er!
For other decadent frozen treats give these a gander!
Fluffernutter Ice Cream with Peanut Butter Sauce – Country Cleaver
Mango Mojito Sorbet – Country Cleaver
Pumpkin Cheesecake Gelato – Country Cleaver
Spring Bouquet Popsicles – Marla Meredith
Print
Chocolate Magic Shell
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 5 minutes
- Total Time: 10 minutes
- Yield: 1 cup 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Microwave
- Cuisine: American
Description
Make your favorite ice cream topping at home!
Ingredients
- 1/4 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1/8th tsp Espresso Powder
- Pinch of salt
- 4 ounces Semi-Sweet Chocolate, chopped
- 1/3 cup Coconut Oil
- 1 tsp Cocoa
Instructions
- In a small dish combine vanilla extract and espresso powder, mixing to combine.
- Pour cocoa powder into small dish with vanilla extract, set aside.
- In medium microwave safe bowl, combine chopped chocolate and coconut oil. Microwave for 2-4 minutes on 50% power, stirring occasionally until the chocolate melts.
- Whisk in vanilla, cocoa, espresso powder and salt. Let chocolate mixture rest for 30 minutes before use.
- Store in airtight container in dark area for up to two months. Gently reheat to make pourable and use as desired.
Notes
Mildly adapted from America’s Test Kitchen Chocolate Ice Cream Topping
*fine print* A copy of the new DIY cookbook was provided to me by America’s Test Kitchen. And one copy will be given to giveaway winner. I was not compensated for this review or post. All opinions are my own – because ATK rocks.
Right now, I am very much into Joy the Baker’s cookbook. I have been eyeing this one from ATK for awhile now! I have to make Magic Shell this summer.
OMG I just viewed your Fluffernutter Ice Cream and Peanut Butter Magic Shell. Holy…
Right now my favorite cookbook is either the Smitten Kitchen book or the Joy the Baker book. Both are so fab!
Taste of Home or my cupcake cookbook
So hard to choose just one but the three I go to most lately are the pioneer womans cookbooks and the beekman heirloom cookbook !!
My fave is Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I dont really cook out of it, but its just having part of Julia in the kitchen with me. I love her 😉
PW Cooks is my go-to. LOVED Magic Shell as a kid – it was my dad and my thing. This would be the first DIY-it-up thing I would have found in the ATK book to try fo sho.
For a family reunion I gathered all the family recipes and made a family cookbook. That is my favorite of course. I have gotten rid of most of my printed cookbooks and use the Internet to find new dishes.
Right at the moment it is Taste of Home cookbook!
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My favorite cookbook is the one I make my husband with copies of our favorite recipes from bloggers and the food network 🙂
I know it’s old school but my whole extended family lives and dies by the original BH&G cookbook (you know, with the red plaid cover. While it is often the go-to cookbook, I would love to learn come new recipes from the ATK DIY! Thanks for the chance!
I really like the old edition of Fannie Farmer
right now I’m in love with the Bouchon Bakery cookbook!
I still use my Better Crocker cookbook even though I love to collect other cookbooks. I love to find the really old ones at book sales.
I recently acquired Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook and have yet to make anything that didn’t blow my mind!
My current favorite is a old favorite that made it back to the top of the list “Baking with Flavor”.
I’m really digging Rose Levy Beranbaum’s cookbooks for baking cake, specifically Heavenly Cakes. It really makes the most delicious and beautiful cakes. Lots of great hidden tips in there too.
Beekman Heirloom
Ah! I have so many cookbooks that I adore! I currently can’t keep my paws off The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook. I received it as a Christmas gift and am still drooling over it!
I think my cookbook fave is a tie between the new: Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, and my staple: Bride and Groom First and Forever.
Alton Brown’s “I’m Here for the Food”
I love The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters, and lately I’m loving the Jerusalem cookbook SO very much!
I ADORE Flour Water Salt Yeast, by Ken Forkish. He runs an artisan bakery and pizza place here in Portland, and these are his bread and dough recipes. TO. DIE. FOR.
Um, that magic shell is gorgeous! Curious if it has a coconut taste to it?
It doesn’t taste like coconut at all! I was almost hoping that it would, kinda like Almond Joy.
I’m loving my Feast of Santa Fe recipe book I found at a Used Book store. Fabulous stuff.
I have too many to name! I love looking at my cake decorating books! It’s amazing what people can do 🙂
I follow you on pinterest also!
My favorite cookbook right now is still the old cookbook from my church in the 50’s.
I love making homemade magic shell, it’s so easy and way better for you than the store bought version! I love the addition of the expresso powder in this one, yum! Now onto cookbooks – hmmm, I’d have a hard time picking a favorite, but I do like the old church cookbooks. 🙂
I wish I had known how to make this stuff years ago! I’ve wasted so many ice cream sundaes Magic Shell-less!
Good to the Grain!
I’ve been making my own version of this for years but then I was trying to re-create something that was around before Magic Shell! The original is called Gold Brick Sundae topping and is only available now online…so making my own was a necessity!
Does this pick up the coconut flavor at all? I know that coconut oil is now the new black so my daughter bought me a jar thinking I ‘needed’ it…this might be the perfect thing to experiment with!
I was surprised that it didn’t have a hint of coconut flavor. Actually I was almost a tad disappointed that it didn’t – because coconut and chocolate is my all time favorite combo! I know you’ll find some great uses for the oil Barbara. XOXO!!
Homemade Magic Shell? This could be life changing! I’ve been a fan of ATK and their publications for years and I have gotten a lot of mileage out of their Best Recipes book. My other go-to is an old as the hills copy of a Betty Crocker “basics” book that Ive had for more than 15 years. It is still a good standby for reference.
My aunt was just telling me she uses coconut oil for hot fudge on ice cream!!! I just got a giant jar from Costco – will definitely be trying this out!!!
Totally try it out – I didn’t think it was crack like it did when I hit it with a spoon – I felt like a kid again!!
OH dear, I MUST try this when it gets just a touch warmer out. (Though I may lose my patience anyway and make it!) My go-to cookbook here recently has actually been an array of cookbooks! I pick and pull, but my fiance wants me to dive into “How To Roast A Lamb” that he’s got. It’s his favorite aside from, “Alinea” being the gastrofoodie book it is, haha.
Cooks Illustrated 30 Minute Meals, for sure!
I love that book too!! I’m making one of the soup recipes tonight!
My current favorite cookbook is, Let Them Eat Vegan, by Dreena Burton.
My kids love Magic Shell on their ice cream, they’d love this!
I have a family cookbook of recipes that have been passed down. It is definitely my favorite!
This sounds like a great book. I love Alton Brown’s cookbooks.
I have been making my own magic shell forever – but only just with coconut oil, vanilla and chocolate. Adding espresso powder? Genius. And I freaking love the coquettes – I so want some in the Caribbean color. So CUTE!!!
Hmmmm fave cookbook? Savory – one of my Rick Bayless ones. That man knows his Mexican food. And for Baking – my new Bouchon bakery book – amazing!
My favorite is definitely my Cook’s Illustrated cookbook. What I love about this one too is that it has a lot of from scratch recipes that are tested out to be the best
My favorite cookbook is The Best of Cooking Light! It has never let me down!
haha, one of my favorite cookbooks is Sesame Street’s B is for Baking.
I’m gonna have to make that. I love ATK too!
I will be trying this soon!
The internet and Pinterest have become my favorite cookbook – is that bad? But now I’m eyeing this ATK book – I love their stuff!
My favorite cookbook changes depending on the latest one I’ve gotten. Right now it’s Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking by Nathalie Dupree.
Cooks Illustrated leads at the moment but the NY Times Cook Book is a go to for lots of classic information. Looks like that Magic Shell product can stay at the grocery store! I can’t wait to surprise the kids.
My favorite cookbook is my good old red checkered Better Homes and Gardens. I end up going to it for the basics like biscuits, dumplings, pie crust, etc.
Love ATK and magic shell!
This is awesome. I loved Magic Shell growing up.
My favorite Cookbook is currently a tie between the Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen and Deliciously Organic by Carrie Witt.
ATK’s Family Baking book – I use it ALL the time… really. Like every other day.
Joy of Cooking was my go to book for the beginning of my serious cooking, but ever since I got the ATK 2001-2011 book, I start there.
Love ATK! This looks great and makes me want to try it ASAP!
During fall and winter I do a lot of baking and my go-to book for recipes or techniques is Sarabeth Levine’s Sarabeth’s Bakery, From My Hand to Yours. It’s a wonderful book.
My favorite cookbook will always be Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking….. but I do enjoy almost all of the America’s Test Kitchen cookbooks.
I could not pin the image on Pinterest……there was a small box with a question mark and the comment section was blank…..don’t know why?
Love Joy of Cooking and Vegetarian Times cookbook.
Love making our own magic shell. I have buttersotch lovers here in the house and made our own. Who knew it was so simple to make! 🙂 I would not have thought to add the other things to the chocolate/coconut oil combo. Must try this now.
I LOVE America’s Test Kitchen! And I love DIY recipes for the kitchen. Sounds like a must have!
OMG – have all my copies of Cook’s from day one .. this looks incredible! Too bad my diabetes won’t allow for this … but I know a 14 yr old who would kill for it and I will share it with her and her Mom (don’t want to get into trouble – 😉
This is WAY too cool….and I’m ALL about DIY right now!
….I have SO many favorite cookbooks, but if I was stuck on a deserted island, it would be Southern Living’s Ultimate Cookbook….it has it all!
I have a signed Martha Stewart’s Cooking School, but above that I cherish the Betty Crocker Cookbook that belonged to my dad after my parents divorced. It has all kinds of little notes he jotted down and loads of hand written recipes tucked in by my grandmother when she would visit him.
I don’t have a favorite cookbook. I like to recipes out of many different ones. Right now my go to is Practical Paleo because I am following a Paleo diet.
My favorite cookbook right now…is a really old one. It’s Farm Journal’s Complete Pie Cookbook it’s from 1965. I’m 6 1/2 months pregnant and I keep craving fruit pie.
The “old faithful” cookbook I always turn to is the Betty Crocker one from the ’60s or ’70s, with lots of avocado and mustard dishes gracing the pictures. My new faves are ATK’s Best Lost recipes and Grandmothers’ Kitchens recipes. Chock full of adventures and delicious goodness!
A favorite cookbook is The Splendid Table, on the food of Emilia Romagna, Italy. But I use an older The Best Recipe for holidays.
My favorite cookbook is The Family Cookbook by America’s Test Kitchen and all of my Cook’s Country magazines. I have amassed quite a collection of the years. I wouldn’t mind adding one more book to my collection…..every recipe is foolproof and is always delicious!! Thanks for the opportunity.
My favorite cookbook is the one I took from my late mother’s kitchen when we were closing up her house. I never use it, but I love it dearly. It was her one and only cookbook–she really didn’t like to cook.
My most-used cookbook is probably my Joy of Cooking. And I *do* like to cook!
I love ATK pasta cookbook..
I love ATK Family Cookbook binder, the red one.
America’s Test Kitchen or Taste of Home…
I have so many but I love all of my ATK books!
My fave cookbook right now is David Lebowitz’s The Perfect Scoop. I really need to use cookbooks more often though!
This cookbook may be my new favorite!
I like Nadia G – Bitchin’ Kitchen.
I love Indian food, and my favorite cookbook is “Lord Krishna’s Cuisine: The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking.”
I’m nearly ashamed to admit that I only heard of magic shell this past year. How did I miss out on that my entire youth?!
and I just bought coconut oil the other day! yeehaw!
My favorite is 29 minutes to dinner cookbook.
Keys to the Kitchen by Aida Mollenkamp!
This magic shell DIY could be dangerous to have around 😉 I am currently in the middle of a love affair with ATK’s Slow Cooker Revolution – got it for Christmas and have already made over a dozen recipes from it. It is awesome!
How can I possibly pick a favorite cookbook? Currently on my bedside stand are Sweet on Texas, Professional Baking, and ATK’s The Science of Good Cooking. Can you say Sugar-Obsessed Dork?
i don’t really have one but there’s on my parents bought when i was selling stuff for junior high ages ago – it’s a collection of dessert recipes from a bunch of regular people. my favorite lemon bars recipe is from that book. i learned to bake with that cookbook!
Favorite cook book is Ready for Dessert!
Ina Garten’s “Back to the Basics” is awesome – my family loves it!
When I was younger, I thought magic shell had actual magic in it. I am so happy I can make it home without the yucky chemicals!
My favorite cookbook right now is Artisan Breads in 5 minutes a day, but of course this changes about weekly!
Love making my own magic shell. You know you can make your own Nutella magic shell, if you really want to make Grandma proud 🙂
I love Cheryl and Griffith Day’s “Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook”.
Currently enjoying “Weeknights w/ Giada.”
David Lebovitz-Ready for Dessert
A handwritten cookbook of family recipes is my favorite cookbook ever! I am able to add recipes to it as well. It’s priceless!!
I have so many wonderful cookbooks, but my favorite cookbook old cookbook is “The Great Big Burger Book” and my new favorite is “The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook.”
I remember Magic Shell too & missed it – thanks for this DIY. My favorite cookbook is “365 Ways to Cook Hamburger” by Doyne Nickerson. It’s the first cookbook I remember buying with my dad. He was a good cook and was looking for money saving recipes.
I love magic shell! Ive never made my own..what a fantastic idea! My son would love it too! 🙂
Favorite cookbook changes all the time…lately its cooking light
I like too many cookbooks to choose just one.
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I need to make this!
I love this idea of magic shell. I was just splurging earlier with some butterscotch chips, and I’m thinking they would make a great magic shell sauce… I’ll have to give it a try. Thanks for this great idea.
Oops, I forgot to mention my favorite cookbook. I love all of the ATK cookbooks; I have a slew of them. But right now I’ve been enjoying “Canning for a New Generation” by Liana Krissoff.
Magic Shell was one of the best things growing up! This is great. We would love to have you link it up at The Hopeless Housewife Link Party, we are giving away a Le Creuset French Oven.
My absolute favorite cookbook without a doubt is a version of ATK that I have….I have no idea when I bought it because the beginning pages are long gone….I’d would say it is somewhere around ten years old… I use this cookbook exclusively UNLESS I am trying to make something that is nit featured which has been often lately unfortunately….I have found that every recipe I’ve ever used from my ATK cookbook has been great. They definately perfected the recipes before including them….. I even have my favorites memorized cause I’ve used them so much… I would absolutely LOVE to have this new ATK DIY cookbook. You have no idea how much I would use it. I love cooking…and I love new good recipes. When saw the magic shell DIY recipe I immediately cut copy pasted it to my notes on my iPad for future reference as although I can’t eat it (allergic to chocolate) my hubby and step daughter are nuts about the stuff….I remember the first time I bought magic shell for my step daughter,…she was about 7 or so, she put it in fridge knowing that all ice-cream toppings went there…..when she realized she had ruined it, she literally cried….. She will love this DIY recipe. And I even have coconut oil on hand as last year, long story short, my mom found out she had a medical condition which pretty much prevented using regular oil and since she had to use coconut oil, I tried it for my family and have been using it ever since and love it! I will be making the magic shell sometime in the next day or so, maybe tonight….. And when I saw th recipe below for fluffernutter ice-cream and peanut butter sauce, my heart lept,,,,lol. I love fluffernutter ice-cream and love peanut butter sauce….haven’t checked the recipe yet, hope it’s one that does not have chocolate or that I can modify to exclude if it does….I’ll make the peanut butter sauce for other stuff though….I love peanut butter and will use the sauce with other stuff! So yes I am excited about this cookbook and so hope I can win….love it! Thanks
My favorite cookbook is called Extending the Table.
Im all about Jeni’s ice cream book right now!
Vegetarianism can be adopted for different reasons. Many object to eating meat out of respect for sentient life. Such ethical motivations have been codified under various religious beliefs, along with the concept of animal rights. Other motivations for vegetarianism are health-related, political, environmental, cultural, aesthetic or economic..,*”
See ya later
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I can vouch for this–easy & delicious–but it definitely has a coconut flavor.
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