Homemade Chocolate Syrup - the REAL stuff!

This chocolate syrup is great! It tastes and feels just like Hershey's Artificially Flavored Chocolate Syrup, except better, because it's REAL.

There is NO chocolate in Hershey's Chocolate Syrup, but there *is* a lot of high fructose corn syrup. Two reasons to avoid the stuff (and I used to drink it by the bottle - I was a kid then!).

One reason to like bottled chocolate syrup - the handy bottle! So save it for this recipe!

Now I'm not saying this recipe is healthy by any means, but at least there is real chocolate and a sugar source you can trust. You KNOW what this sugar will do to your body. I am experimenting with other natural sweeteners (honey, molasses), but we still prefer white sugar the best.

Homemade Chocolate Syrup

Ingredients & Instructions:

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 cup water

Mix those two things in a pan and heat over medium to dissolve.

2 cups pure white cane sugar

Stir in the sugar and boil for 3 minutes. This step is *critical* - use a timer! The full three minutes thickens it up and makes it syrup, not chocolate-sugar water ;)

1/8 tsp salt (we use sea salt)

1/4 tsp vanilla (we use pure organic vanilla extract with bourbon, which boils out)

Remove from heat. Add salt and vanilla. Stir it in thoroughly.

Allow to cool (this is the hardest part - looking at all that chocolate goodness, just sitting there!). It will thicken as it cools.

Use a funnel to pour it into a storage bottle.
Place some ice cream or milk into that saucepan and don't let the remaining chocolate go to waste (I hear-tell that a finger works just as well!)

;)