Better Than Bottled- Rich Chocolate Syrup (GMO-Free)

Have you ever had a friend suggest that you make something, and you kind of hem and haw and scrunch your nose up at them?  Yeah, so have I.  And I openly admit I'm not going to do that again!  I might miss out on something superchocolicious!   Take this beyond easy chocolate syrup.  It's got 5 ingredients and one of them is water!  I mean, *who* doesn't have water on hand?   My sincerest condolences if you don't have any water on hand because this syrup is that good and you're going to want to eat the whole jar.   Hershey's probably won't want you to make this, but you should make it anyway.  Live on the edge people!  Make your own chocolate syrup!

Alrighty- This recipe was one of the easiest recipes I've made since my days in 8th grade Home Ec class.  Remember Home Ec?  Man I loved that class.  I didn't care for sewing pillows or making a sweatshirt, but the cooking part was wonderful.

The reason I made this syrup wasn't because I needed a topping for my ice cream--although it does taste mighty freaking fantastic on ice cream, and it also looks purty on ice cream-- it's because I was out of my hot chocolate truffle balls and I needed some hot cocoa.  It was TWO degrees here today.  Two!  That's like how many feet I have.  I'd prefer the temp to be somewhere around half my IQ- and before you get all sassypants on me people, that would make it 70.5 degrees.  (Shaking my head at the fact that you probably guessed like 50 degrees or something- psh!  Haters!)

As I said, I was out of my fabulous hot chocolate truffle balls and I was cold and needed something warm to drink. That's when my dear friend "H" suggested that I make some chocolate syrup so I could get my cocoa fix.  That's when I scrunched my nose and hemmed and hawed.  I'm not a huge fan of syrups to make hot cocoa.  I want a high quality bittersweet or semi sweet chocolate made into a ganache with some glorious organic cream, and rolled into cute little truffle balls.  But I digress.  

I got to thinking that this syrup would taste good on ice cream, it could make chocolate milk, hot cocoa, TSM (The Stud Muffin) could add it to his coffee to make a mocha- lots of possibilities here.   I looked over the recipe, looked into my cupboard, found the necessary ingredients and got busy.

It took about 10 minutes to make from start to finish.  I love 10-minute recipes!  I let it cool, drizzled it over ice cream for the blog photo, gave the ice cream to TSM, and made myself some cocoa, which I'm currently sipping on as I write. 

This tastes very similar to the Hershey's bottled chocolate syrup that you buy at the grocery store, but without the GMOs, High Fructose Corn Syrup, corn syrup, emulsifiers, polysorbate 60 (which is an ingredient used in making yoga mats among other things) and preservatives. I will be testing this recipe with cocoa powders NOT made by Hershey's and will update this post with those results at that time.  Thankfully their cocoa powder doesn't contain the ingredients that their bottle chocolate syrup does.  So you can feel much better about making this as an alternative!

Are you ready for this simple, tasty, chocolatey syrup recipe?  I hope so.

Rich Chocolate Syrup

Recipe adapted from: Small Notebook

Makes: 2-1/4 cups

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/2 cup cocoa powder- your favorite brand.  For this recipe I used Hershey's Special Dark unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 cup water
• 2 Cups sugar (I think you could try 1-2/3 cups and after it dissolves, taste it and add the final 1/3 cup if it's needed)
• 1/4 tsp. kosher salt
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS:  

1. In a small sauce pan, add the water, cocoa powder and salt.  Turn heat to medium.
2. Stir until cocoa and water are fully combined.  
3. Add sugar and stir until dissolved.
4. Bring mixture to a boil and cook for 3 minutes taking care NOT to let it get too hot so that the syrup boils over.  Turn heat to low if necessary.  Once the syrup starts to rise in that pan, act fast or it'll boil over.
5. Remove pan from heat and stir in vanilla.  It might gurgle a bit. That's normal because the vanilla is room temp and your syrup is about 212 degrees F.
6. Let cool completely, then pour into a glass container, or a squeeze bottle.  Store in the fridge. This will keep for up to 2 weeks.

This syrup is pretty rich, and sweet, so use about 1 TB for a glass of chocolate milk. I used 2 TB for 12 ounces of milk for my hot chocolate.   Enjoy!!  

So- did you make this syrup? I'd love to hear what you think.  I'd love to see pictures of your finished product on my Facebook page!