Homemade Chocolate Syrup

It is no secret that I am a big proponent of making things that many folks buy at the store. From the common (potato chips, bread, ice cream, laundry detergent) to the hard-or-impossible-to-find (furikake, candied jalapenos, game stock), home kitchen alchemy can do it if it’s worth having or doing. Sometimes my efforts earn me admiration, but just as often it gets me a resounding, “Why would you bother when you can easily buy this fill-in-the-blank at the store?” My motivation for this DIY spirit tends to vary with the project, but here, in no particular order, are a few reasons that pop up frequently.

• To save money: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I’m cheap. I want to stretch every household dollar as far as it can reasonably go without breaking. Starting with basic ingredients prepared at home is almost assuredly gentler on your wallet than pre-fab food.
• To make it taste better: I honestly believe that the best food is never, ever going to come from a box mix or a shelf-stable pre-made package. This is not to say I’m a food snob; I’ll eat just about anything you put in front of me. Food should sustain your body, yes, but it should also nourish your soul, so if I’m the one slinging grub, I’m going to make it the best grub I can possibly sling.
• To make it better for you: Soup made at home is, unless you’re very heavy handed, certain to contain less sodium than the canned or frozen variety. You can opt to make foods with healthier ingredients (for example olive oil vs. vegetable oil, butter vs. shortening, etc…)
• To avoid certain ingredients: Thankfully, my husband, children and self are free of food allergies, but there are still certain preservatives and ingredients that I choose not to serve to us. Making our own food from scratch is a much easier way to accomplish that than obsessively reading labels.
• To know the source of the item: This is not a star-bellied sneetch issue; I don’t care whether something has stars on thars. The problem is that there have been some real problems in the recent past with food, household, or health and beauty items that did not meet safety standards. Besides, why pay for something to come from overseas when I can make it here at home, saving goodness-knows-how-much fuel and/or energy for better purposes?
• To prove that I can do it: It’s that pioneer spirit, that sisu, that I-don’t-know-what. It’s the same reason my dad put on his winter kit and walked around the house three times after the meteorologist said that the weather was too bad for anyone to be outside. We do this because we are capable and we are not intimidated. If a machine can make it, I darned well better be able to make it, too. (This is where we pound our chests and do warrior cries, folks.)

Chocolate syrup is a big deal around here. Chocolate syrup is stirred into cold milk for chocolate milk, hot milk for hot chocolate, blended into smoothies, squirted on ice cream, peanut butter and banana sandwiches, pound cake,  and –when I’m not looking- directly into mouths. We consume it in vast quantities. A couple years back, I got tired of actively ignoring the ingredient lists (the major brands all have high fructose corn syrup, artificial flavouring, food dyes, and other things on my no-no- list) and paying through the nose for the privilege. A little experimentation yielded a vastly superior in taste, higher quality, far less expensive chocolate syrup that was simple to make and required nothing more exotic than Dutch-processed cocoa powder.

I played around with the classic Alton Brown cocoa syrup recipe and found that our crew greatly preferred it made with raw sugar because of the light caramel undertones it delivers and the added richness. Honestly. How could rich + chocolate go wrong? I make at least one batch (sometimes more if the hot chocolate consumption is especially high around these parts) of this good stuff a month.

Bonuses: If you are looking for fat-free, this recipe is for you! If you’re not looking for fat-free, I suggest making it anyway. This chocolate syrup is mighty good. This syrup can be made with honey if you have corn allergies or aversions chez you. Try finding a chocolate syrup at the store that is corn syrup free for this price!

Homemade Chocolate Syrup

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Rebecca Lindamood

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This simple homemade DIY chocolate syrup delivers a mega punch of deep, dark, and chocolatey flavour for drizzling on ice cream, stirring into milk, blending into Coffee Milkshakes , or whatever else your chocolate-loving heart desires.

Ingredients

  

• 1 ½ cups water
• 3 cups raw sugar
• 1 ½ cups Dutch-processed cocoa powder
• 1 ½ tablespoons vanilla extract preferably homemade
• ¼ teaspoon kosher or sea salt
• 2 tablespoons light corn syrup or mild honey

Instructions

 

• Bring water and sugar to a boil in a medium-to-large saucepan (this will expand as it boils in later stages of the recipe), stirring until sugar is dissolved.
• Whisk in the remaining ingredients until the cocoa powder is also dissolved. Return to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer until slightly thickened, about 5-8 minutes. You do not want to boil it until it is very thick, as it will become even more viscous as it cools.
• Pour the hot syrup through a fine mesh strainer and let cool to room temperature before transferring into squeeze bottles.

Notes

Notes: Dutch-processed cocoa powder is used here because it dissolves more easily in liquids than common (a.k.a. natural) cocoa powder; No matter what its other benefits, a homemade chocolate syrup that is gritty isn’t what we want. Dutch-processed cocoa powder is generally easy to find in grocery stores with well-stocked baking sections and in bulk food stores. I use raw sugar in this recipe because I like the added depth of flavour and touch of caramel it contributes. If you cannot find it easily (it is also sold under the names turbinado, sugar-in-the-raw, and demerara) you can substitute white granulated sugar for it. You can get squeeze bottles at big box stores or in the kitchen notions sections of grocery stores. If you use an opaque ketchup or mustard bottle to store your syrup, remember to label it so you don’t forget what’s in there at an inopportune moment. While chocolate syrup is good on many things, hot dogs and hamburgers are not among them.

Nutritional information is an estimate and provided to you as a courtesy. You should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe using your preferred nutrition calculator.

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