I remember when I was young a big treat for my family was going to the Handi Market and buying a gallon box (yes gallon box, it was white with red dots and maybe stripes…) of Carnival vanilla ice cream and a can of Hershey’s chocolate syrup to go with it. The syrup cans used to come with a yellow plastic lid you used once you opened the can.
Fast forward to today and I try to keep vanilla ice cream in the freezer at all times (preferably Breyers when it goes on 4/$10 like last week) but since our family is avoiding high fructose corn syrup I can no longer use the old standby of Hershey’s syrup.
I have tried two different recipes for making my own chocolate syrup and though they are similar one comes out better. Below is a recipe adapted from How to Win The Grocery Game which was published a long time ago. She advocates using 1 Tablespoon of margarine (we used butter) in her recipe but we thought that was a little greasy.
One thing to note is that the taste of this syrup will change depending on what brand of cocoa you use. I used the Shurfine store brand and it tastes really good – very rich. The Weis store brand made it too dark and the family didn’t like it as much. The texture may be a little grainy as well but we didn’t mind that at all.
This is a gluten-free recipe.
Homemade Chocolate Syrup (to replace Hershey’s syrup)
- 3/4 Cup cocoa (not hot chocolate mix)
- 1 1/2 Cup sugar
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 Cup boiling water
- 1 tsp vanilla (gluten free if you want a gluten free syrup)
Mix cocoa, sugar and salt together in a saucepan (bigger than a 2 cup saucepan). Add boiling water gradually. Cook over medium heat for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add vanilla.
Can be served warm or cold though it is a bit thin while warm. You can use it to make chocolate milk or over ice cream or pancakes or whatever you’d use Hershey’s syrup for. If you’d like to try the original recipe add 1 Tbl margarine with the vanilla and stir until melted.
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