This Harry Potter-inspired recipe for Florean Fortescue's Choco-Nut Sundae includes ice cream, hot fudge, whipped cream, nuts, and a cherry.

Michelle Bush remembers her first Sanders hot fudge cream puff like it was yesterday. "I was 10 years old and my dad took me to the Montgomery Wards in Southgate at Trenton Road and Eureka. I got my ears pierced, and because I didn't cry, he took me to Sanders in the same little mall and I had my first hot fudge cream puff," she said. "I was hooked." That was in the early 1970s. She continued the tradition, taking herself to different Sanders locations in the downriver area whenever she could, especially in the 1980s while pregnant with her son. She gifted her mom a jar of Sanders milk chocolate hot fudge every year for Christmas and also sent some to her sister out of state. Many people who grew up in Metro Detroit have a similar relationship to Sanders as Bush does, because the company's roots go back to 1875. It was a 100-year-old company in the 1970s when Sanders had around 60 of their own stores plus counters within other shopping destinations. Now at 150, Sanders is owned by Madison Heights-based Second Nature Brands. In 2022, Second Nature was acquired by London-based private equity investor CapVest Partners LLP. Bush, who now lives in Bloomfield Township, said the classic Sanders milk chocolate hot fudge just doesn't taste the same today, and her mom and sister agree. "I don't like it at all," she said. "I want them to change it back. It's sad." It is not the same, and that's in part because the equipment used to make Sanders hot fudge was antiquated, says Second Nature Brands senior brand manager Sean Kristl. This is why the jars of Sanders hot fudge were hard to find around 2022. "We couldn't produce it in our (Clinton Township) facility anymore so we spent a year really vetting partners and finally landed on one that met our criteria and our high quality standard," he said, adding he couldn't share who the partner was but he could confirm that it is made domestically. This change allowed them to take a look at their ingredients and actually simplify it before reintroducing it in 2023. "We really, really wanted to focus on using real ingredients: real cream, real cane sugar and real butter. We removed ingredients like corn syrup and carrageenan." Carrageenan is a natural, widely used food additive with thickening and stabilizing properties. If you look at a jar of Sanders milk chocolate hot fudge from 2021 you'll see that there's also soy lecithin, an emulsifier, which is not in the new product. Kristl could confirm that Sanders started making its hot fudge in the 1930s. Is it possible that the recipe may have changed at some other point before in its history? Yes, but with a company as old as Sanders that's gone through some ownership changes, it's hard to know for certain. A 1977 Sanders advertisement in The Detroit News touted that the hot fudge was made with butter, cane sugar and chocolate. The "old version" that went scarce in 2022 did not use cane sugar. So it's possible that this new version that does have cane sugar is actually closer to the Sanders hot fudge of the mid-20th century than people remember. I couldn’t tell you what the previous recipe tasted like as I was more of a swirl-cone-with-sprinkles kind of kid in the 1980s, but I did eat Sanders products growing up. I recently had a Sanders hot fudge cream puff from the Sanders Chocolate & Ice Cream Shoppe in downtown Rochester, which is serving the new version of the hot fudge. I thought it was lovely, with a rich and strong chocolate flavor and nice texture. The hot fudge used in the store today is the same as the jarred stuff, which is also sold at the Rochester and Clinton Township Sanders stores, as well as online, for $8.99-$12.99. (It's no longer distributed to grocery stores as it used to be.) I tried the milk chocolate hot fudge topping from the jar at home and found it to be just as good when heated in my microwave and poured over store-bought ice cream. Per Kristl's suggestion, I took some out of the jar, put it in microwave microwave-safe container and heated it slowly in 10-second increments until it became the consistency I wanted. Poured over regular vanilla ice cream, it was fudgy and chocolatey and got nicely thicker as it cooled against the ice cream. Ken and Chris Pompili were at the Sanders shoppe earlier this week, too, stocking up on Eastern chocolates for their nieces and nephews. The Rochester Hills residents first started sharing Sanders hot fudge cream puffs when they got married 52 years ago. They agree that the hot fudge doesn't taste like it used to, but it's not bad. "I like it. It's fine," says Chris, adding that she'd really like it if the company would bring back the chocolate-covered gummy bears, her favorite. "It's not terrible, but it's not the old Sanders," adds Ken. The online reviews are also mixed. Customers have been brutally honest on the official Sanders website. “The new hot fudge tastes NOTHING like the original,” complains one customer, while others say the new recipe is “a disappointment” and “not what we all grew up with.” (The online reviews for salted caramel hot fudge dessert topping and caramel topping are better.) DoorDash customers — those close enough can DoorDash food and products from the Rochester and Clinton Township shops — are more appreciative. The Sanders hot fudge cream puff is described in customer reviews as “delicious as always” and “a great value.” As a community, we can look on the bright side and be thankful that the Sanders name is still around to enjoy, even if things have changed over its 150-year existence. You can please some of the people some of the time, but you can't please everyone. "We are always listening to consumers and we've had both positive feedback and we've had consumers who want the previous recipe back," said Kristl. Melody Baetens is The Detroit News restaurant critic mbaetens@detroitnews.com This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Why Sanders hot fudge topping may taste different since it's gone back on the market