I have decided to set myself a mini challenge for the next few weeks, to bake using chocolate. A strange thing to say considering its chocolate, but I honestly don’t use it very much. I am very much a fruit or caramel or spice kind of girl, when the dessert trolley comes my way I’ll always look for the fruitiest option, and bypass the chocolate cake all together. So I’m going to explore my chocolate options for the next few weeks and see what I come up with. Don’t get me wrong I do like chocolate very much and enjoy eating it in bar form a lot!

We all love a bit of chocolate; we can’t help ourselves there is just something that calls to us when the word chocolate is mentioned.















I don’t eat a lot of it but when I do I like it to be good quality and versatile. Chocolate is becoming expensive these days and I want it to be multi purposeful I want my moneys worth. And this baby delivers 🙂















Homemade chocolate syrup was like a revelation to me when making it I didn’t think I’d have much use for if apart from putting it on ice cream.















And oh boy is it good on ice cream! As an ice cream sauce it is amazing, bring a real chocolate hit to vanilla ice cream, up the chocolate flavour in chocolate ice cream or give coffee ice cream a mocha twist. Whatever wonderful flavour ice cream combination you can think of, a little chocolate sauce really blings the dish up.















But it has so many more applications it can be used for, added to coffee its like having an easy homemade mocha.















For the kids, or adults who are still really big kids it makes a really good chocolate milk and you know what’s gone into it as you have made it so you don’t have to worry about mystery chemicals being fed to you kids.















Also who doesn’t love chocolate milk now and again? 🙂















There are so few ingredients in this and it can be made in 10 minutes. A jar of this homemade chocolate sauce can be kept in the fridge for up to 6 weeks, yeah good luck on keeping it that long! And it would also make a really good foodie gift for any time of the year.















And one for the adults here, if you fancy being a little naughty when the kids have gone to bed or when friends are visiting this makes a really good chocolate martini.

Just pop a couple of glasses in the freezer for at least 15 minutes and grab a cocktail shaker, or a really large glass and a side plate to cover the top.

Half fill it with crushed ice and add,

4 measures of the chocolate syrup (about 8 tablespoons)

4 measures of gin or vodka (about 8 tablespoons)

2 measures of vermouth (about 4 tablespoons)

A measure in the UK is usually 25 millilitres

And shake well. Pour into the frozen glasses and dust with cocoa powder.

This will make 2 large martinis. Extra ice is optional.















So on to this simple homemade chocolate syrup.



Recipe:













Homemade Chocolate Syrup A devine liquid chocolaté with a multitude of uses. 0 from 0 votes Print Pin Prep Time: 5 minutes Cook Time: 8 minutes Total Time: 13 minutes Servings: 1 litre / 1 medium jam jar Author: Emma Ingredients 110 grams good quality cocoa powder ((a scant 1 cup))

215 grams sugar ((1 cup + 1 tablespoon))

240 millilitres water ((1 cup))

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon vanilla extract Instructions Place all the ingredients in a pan together and over a medium heat mix everything together until the sugar has melted and everything is incorporated.

Once done allow the syrup to cool for 10 minutes in the pan. Once the time is up pour the chocolate syrup into your chosen jar or bottle.

*Just a quick note the first time I made this I used an old wine bottle for storage and when I went to use it, it wouldn’t pour out of the bottle it had formed a skin. Panic not if this happens to you, just add 2 tablespoons of boiling water to the bottle and give it a gentle swirl or stand the bottle in warm water for a minute or two. I keep mine in an old jam jar now and I have never had this problem again. Tried this recipe? Mention @BakeThenEat or tag #BakeThenEat Share this recipe Mention @BakeThenEat or tag #BakeThenEat