Claude Can Cook

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Fun  

GenAI’s come a long way since it recommended using glue on your pizza toppings. You still can’t trust it not to write instructions that will kill us all and destroy the world, but you can at least ask nicely.

I happened to have on hand a bunch of Ghirardelli chocolate melting wafers, which I use in colder months to produce delicious hot chocolate in my Nespresso Barista machine (still one of the only milk/coffee/etc frothers to be able to handle chunks of chocolate and ice).

Unfortunately, I buy it in 5-pound bags, and it’s been “a touch warm” recently, and I don’t think I’ll be drinking hot chocolate for a while. So I fired up Claude and asked it for instructions to make a chocolate sauce topping suitable for ice cream and tiramisu, using melting wafers and espresso. I made a half-batch that turned out quite nice, and it works well in a squeeze bottle right out of the fridge:

Espresso Chocolate Sauce

“A thick, glossy chocolate sauce made with melting wafers and fresh espresso — rich enough to hold its shape on ice cream, silky enough to soak into tiramisu layers.”

  • 180 ml heavy cream
  • 60 ml espresso, hot
  • 300 grams chocolate melting wafers
  • 1 tbsp light corn syrup
  • 30 grams unsalted butter
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/4 tsp fine sea salt

  1. In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine heavy cream and freshly brewed espresso. Heat until steaming and just beginning to simmer at the edges — do not let it boil.

  2. Stir light corn syrup into the hot cream mixture until dissolved. This helps keep the sauce glossy and prevents sugar crystallization.

  3. Place chocolate melting wafers (dark or semi-sweet) in a heatproof bowl. Pour the hot cream mixture over the wafers. Let it sit undisturbed so the residual heat can start melting the chocolate evenly.

  4. Starting from the center, whisk slowly in small circles, gradually widening, until the mixture is completely smooth and glossy with no streaks of unmelted chocolate.

  5. Add unsalted butter, cut into cubes a few cubes at a time, whisking until fully incorporated and silky. Whisk in vanilla extract and fine sea salt.

  6. Let the sauce sit at room temperature for 10-15 minutes to thicken slightly before serving. It will continue to thicken as it cools, and firms up further if refrigerated.

(I had to clean up the instructions, because they were over-literal and repetitive, and I reordered the ingredient list to match the order they’re used; highlighting the ingredients in the instructions is a personal preference that I could tell Claude to do, if I were to build a recipe layout “skill” at some point)

A flaw in the Pexar

Out of the box, it turns off the display at 11 PM and stays off until 7 AM the next day. So, what happens if you’re loading a big batch of images from a USB stick when the clock strikes?

You wait until morning to finish the import. Seriously. It’s completely unresponsive until then.

(I’d say those aren’t Best Lizard Girl Theresia’s snacks, except they look delicious…)

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