Continuing The Quest For Homemade

I’m really excited about this one today.  A few weeks ago, you may remember that I put together a homemade strawberry syrup.  This was really borne out of a desired to utilize a freezer full of frozen strawberries, and as it was such a success, it had me thinking about other things I take for granted in the kitchen.

Let’s say, chocolate syrup.  Now, I’m not personally the worlds biggest fan of the chocolate syrup in a brown squeeze bottle.  I don’t really drink much milk myself, so adding a squeeze to milk just doesn’t appeal to me.  And when it comes to ice cream, I tend to be a purist.  Unless I’m topping brownies or something special, I like my ice cream straight up as it is and in small portions.

But when I added that strawberry syrup to some milk, stirred it up and tasted it, it was a revelation.  This milk tasted like strawberry milk should taste.  Slightly sweet, full of strawberry flavor, and not neon pink.  It tasted like the best strawberry ice cream had melted and we were drinking it.  So it stood to reason that if I kept strawberry syrup on hand for Zander, I would need to keep some chocolate syrup on hand for Abigail.  She’s my chocolate girl, and I would feel so much better about her and her chocolate milk if she wasn’t squeezing high fructose corn syrup into her milk.

So instead, I now have homemade chocolate syrup on hand in the fridge.  This was way easier than I anticipated it could be, and the results are spectacular.  The syrup is very chocolatey and delicious- and I just used plain old Nestle cocoa powder.  I imagine using a higher quality cocoa would result in a higher quality syrup.   Another thing that really excited me about this syrup is its potential for adaptation.  Have a diabetic in the family?  Leave off the sugar and use splenda (or sweetener of your choice), just remember that splenda and other sweeteners tend to be sweeter, so use less and add more if you need to.  Trying to watch your glycemic index? Following the South Beach way of eating?  Try using agave nectar as the sweetener.  I think honey would work fantastic, or if you’re going for an all-natural organic syrup, use some organic turbinado or demerara.  Use whatever you would like, with whatever cocoa you would like.  The syrup will be delicious, it will be homemade, and you can pronounce every ingredient in the jar.  Sugar, cocoa, salt, water and vanilla. It just can’t get any easier or better than that.

Homemade Chocolate Syrup

1 cup cocoa powder

2 cups sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup cold water

1 tablespoon vanilla

Directions:

In a 3-quart saucepan, whisk together the cocoa, sugar and salt until no lumps of cocoa remain.  Whisk in the cold water (it will resist combining at first).  Turn on the heat to medium to medium high and bring to a boil- whisking pretty consistently.

Once it comes to a boil, turn down the heat so that it is still boiling, but not in danger of boiling over- medium low worked well for me.  Continue cooking and stirring for 5 to 7 minutes, or until the mixture has appeared to thicken slightly.   Be careful not to overcook, this is a fairly thin syrup.

Remove from heat and add the vanilla.  Cool, pour into a glass jar and store in the fridge.

Makes about 1 3/4 cups of chocolate syrup and will keep for several weeks refrigerated.