Chocolate Syrup

In our house we love us some chocolate milk and I love to add chocolate syrup to iced coffee in the summer. I was horrified when I saw that the FIRST INGREDIENT in Hershey's Chocolate syrup was high fructose corn syrup, followed by corn syrup, then water and THEN cocoa. Seriously? It wasn't even a reduced calorie or fat version! I've been really trying to eliminate processed foods from our diets and this seemed like another easy area that I could make a positive change.

Annie posted a recipe and I pretty much right away ordered a glass bottle to store our syrup in. As soon as it was delivered I set to making the syrup. Our first batch was devoured, only a month later. You can bet your hiney that I doubled the batch this time.

Chocolate Syrup
via Annie's Eats

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup water
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla extract

In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar and cocoa powder and whisk briefly to break up any clumps.  Stir in the water and salt and bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring frequently.  Once the mixture reaches a boil, reduce the heat to medium-low and let simmer until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes.  Remove from the heat and let stand for 5 minutes.  Stir in the vanilla.  Store in the refrigerator.