Ever since I determined my son could not tolerate corn syrup and I started eliminating it from our diets, my beloved chocolate syrup was no longer.  I was not able to buy it in good conscience, even for just me, because if he couldn’t have it, I didn’t want it in the house.  No sense having double standards.  I lived without it for many years and tried different syrups, including one made by Trader Joe’s that tastes good but is extremely thick and also uses a lot of refined sugar.  I decided to experiment and make my own.  There are several recipes online using 1.5 CUPS of sugar but that was way too much refined sugar for my taste so I thought about replacing the sugar with a more healthy sweetener: maple syrup.  Pure maple syrup has many benefits, including being an excellence source of manganese and zinc.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 3/4 cup filtered water
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• dash salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

Combine cocoa, water, maple syrup and salt in a small saucepan and bring to boil – stirring frequently to incorporate and prevent burning.  Once it starts to boil, reduce heat and simmer for one minute, stirring often.  Be careful not to burn.  (If you do not have responsive burners, you may want to remove from heat source momentarily and return.)  After one minute, remove from heat and add vanilla.  Allow to cool and then store in the refrigerator.  The syrup will thicken as it cools but should still be thin enough to squeeze out of a bottle (like for ketchup, etc.)  This can be used for just about anything – chocolate milk, drizzle over raspberries (my personal favorite,) or as an ice cream condiment.  Enjoy knowing that is is made with healthy ingredients!!