The Game-Changing Ingredient You Should Add To Chocolate Fondue

Oh, to have been dinner-party-attending-age during the 1970s, when fondue parties were all the rage. Surely you've indulged in this big ol' pot of melted cheese into which various items such as cubed bread, vegetables, and potatoes are dipped using a long-pronged fork, but probably way less often than your parents' generation did — back when gathering around a pot of fondue was all the rage.

Around the same time, chocolate fondue, which, like its savory counterpart, was inspired by Swiss cuisine, also became quite the trend (via European Cuisines). This melty dessert concoction, which features fresh fruit, cubed pound cake, marshmallows, and even pretzels as dippers, is blessedly simple to make at home, consisting basically of melting chopped chocolate into heavy cream to create a ganache. To kick the standard formula up a notch, all kinds of flavorings can be stirred into chocolate fondue, but Tasting Table recipe developer Jessica Morone's take calls upon a boozy delight you might have stashed in your liquor cabinet right now.

If you've been known, from time to time, to indulge in a slightly boozy Irish coffee, then chances are you'd also love this silky Irish Cream Chocolate Fondue from Tasting Table recipe developer Jessica Morone. Along with the standard fondue ingredients of heavy cream and chopped chocolate — in this case a semi-sweet variety — Morone mixes in Irish cream, that sweet mixture of Irish whiskey, cream, and sugar (via Baileys).

Cream on cream? You better believe it. "The addition of the Irish cream to the chocolate gives it a delicious, complex flavor," Morone tells Tasting Table. And she doesn't skimp on the deliciousness, either, adding a generous ⅓ cup of the stuff to her fondue. "There is a good amount of Irish cream in this recipe so you can really taste the added flavor," she says. So the next time you're craving a participatory dessert that's evocative of a 1970s Swiss chalet, do a little border-jumping and grab your favorite bottle of Irish cream, too.