The Case for Dumping Hot Sauce All Over Your Valentine's Day Desserts
I’ve always said that one of the most intimate details you can know about your partner is their precise Scoville level of heat tolerance. And so this Valentine's Day, I advise you to turn the lights down low, get out the candles, and drip your snot and tears on everything. There’s really nothing better for a romantic, sexually charged evening than hot sauce.
Valentine's Day has always been a day for romantic food, which, let's be honest, is normally boring as shit. Rosemary infused proteins, roasted veggies, bread, and other things that may be fancy and technically taste good, but lack all semblance of fireworks—a surprising trait for a holiday all about heat. Real romance is a hot make-out sesh with a burning, capsaicin-coated mouth. And while Valentine's Day doesn't really have a specific entree, it does have sweets. Mainly, chocolate. That's where the hot sauce comes into play.
Chocolate and chili pepper is a wild (and vastly underutilized) combo, from habanero chocolate bars to spiced hot chocolate. Adding spice to the creamy, sometimes bitter taste of chocolate can create a magical mouth explosion (sorry). Hell's Kitchen Hot Sauce, which is local to New York but available online, has a hot sauce that I think works especially well for dumping on a sweet Valentine's Day treat.
Pepper Pastry is mildly spicy, a gorgeous mix of blueberry and maple with chilis. It's great on steaks and pork and pretty much any meat, but what really makes this sauce ideal for Valentine's Day is how phenomenal it tastes with dessert. Pour a little on top of your molten lava cake on date night, and it'll add a remarkable hit of heat and that soft, sweet acidity from the blueberry. The maple aspect works much more subtly than you’d expect. It doesn't taste like maple syrup, but rather like when you add a bit of honey to tea, helping the bite go down smoother and mesh with the sugars better, without tasting like a damn pancake.
The sauce, like any good hot sauce, adapts to its dish. I’ve tried it on meat, brownies, ice cream—all good. While it’s not necessarily as utilitarian as, say, sriracha or Tabasco, it works on an array of sweet and savory meals, including many on which hot sauces normally miss the mark. Beyond adding a little more heat, the mix of the chilis with the chocolate supposedly has aphrodisiacal benefits, if you're into that sort of thing and looking to reclaim some semblance of sexiness despite your red, sweaty, snotty face. (Luckily, Pepper Pastry is not so hot that your nose is going to run like crazy, unless you're a hot sauce newbie, and as long as you use it responsibly.)
Valentine's Day is literally tomorrow, so if you're in for a penny but not for a pound, Tabasco's Family Reserve Pepper Sauce is another solid choice for pouring on sweets. I mean, hell, the brand even released a fantastic Tabasco tin of sweet and spicy dark chocolate. Spice kings and queens like me shouldn’t be expected to set aside their hot sauce love any night of the year. That includes Valentine's Day. Turn on and turn up.
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