It may sound simple, but can you imagine having an endless supply of rich chocolate syrup for all the chocolate milk you ever wanted? Making your own syrup means you control the ingredients (have you ever looked on the back of the store chocolate syrup?) and you also can control just how chocolaty you want it to be! It’s brilliant.
I have been making this chocolate syrup for my kids years ago, when one of them had a sensitivity to high fructose corn syrup. It is shocking to see how many foods contain this type of sweetener. Luckily, cane sure is much more delicious and causes no problems in this house.
Don’t just use this chocolate nectar for milk though. I like to make angel food cake (a tasty result of having so many chickens) and drizzle warm chocolate syrup over the slices. My banana cake also needs a little bit of this on top. A little goes a long way when you use a dark chocolate as the base. I like Hershey’s Dark cocoa. Ok. On to the recipe!
1 Cup cocoa
2 Cups cane sugar
¼ tsp salt
1 Cup water
1 Tbsp. vanilla
Who am I kidding? I double this!
Place all ingredients except the vanilla in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and cook for 5 minutes, or until it gets a glossy, velvety thickness to it. It thickens even more when it cools.
Once you have the right consistency, remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla. I like to allow the syrup to cool to room temperature before adding my vanilla so I don’t steam off the delicate vanilla oils that give the flavor. Simple and fast, this isn’t a good recipe to cook with the little chefs though. That sugar gets so hot and smells so good it may be irresistible to little fingers.
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