Chocolate syrup

     Note:  This post is of interest to foodies only.

Last Sunday I served multigrain waffles for breakfast with an assortment of toppings for guests to pass around the table. There were strawberries, caramel bananas (an experiment for me), whipped cream (with a secret ingredient), toasted pecan pieces, sweet cream butter and pure maple syrup. Since I had an 8-year-old here, I decided to add something different to the array of toppings--chocolate syrup. The ready-made chocolate syrup I've had is not so great, probably because it's mostly corn syrup. So I went to my favorite recipe web site, http://www.epicurious.com/, to find a recipe. Here is the one I used, with my comments following. (This recipe appeared in the Feb. 2003 issue of Gourmet.  Ah, Gourmet, RIP.)

Chocolate Syrup
yield: Makes about 1 1/2 cups
1 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, preferably Dutch-process
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla

Bring water and sugar to a boil, whisking until sugar is dissolved. Whisk in cocoa and salt and simmer, whisking, until slightly thickened, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and add vanilla, then cool (syrup will continue to thicken as it cools).

This is a not-too-sweet syrup, which I like. I didn't have any Dutch process cocoa on hand, so I used regular, but next time I will use the Dutch process--my batch had a slightly bitter taste. Despite that criticism, the 8-year-old loved it, so it is kid-approved.

One nice thing about this product is that it has virtually no fat--just the tiny bit that occurs in the cocoa. With skim or low-fat milk, it's not a bad choice for a chocolate fix (alas, it still has calories). I made hot chocolate with the syrup, using a substantial quantity, and it was great! Intense cocoa flavor.

Yesterday I took a cheesecake to a lunch meeting I attended. I made a simple three-berry sauce for topping and also took the last of the chocolate syrup. It's quite a thick sauce, so I thinned it with a little hot water to facilitate pouring. Both were hits.

Now back to those caramel bananas. For some reason I decided on that morning that plain old sliced bananas just wouldn't be special enough, so I tried a little experiment.  I sliced firm-ripe bananas diagonally, dipped them in cream, then coated each side with brown sugar. Next they went into a non-stick pan with a tablespoon of melted butter at medium heat. I didn't want the bananas to get mushy, so I turned them just as soon as the sugar on the "down" side began to caramelize. I cooked three small batches of bananas. Because some of the cream and sugar cooked off into the butter (forming caramel), I had to wipe out the pan with a paper towel between batches and melt more butter. The lesson learned is that you should try to cook the bananas in a single batch. The bananas were the hit of the morning with the grown-ups at the table.

Interesting side note. Sunday afternoon I was on Facebook and one of my FB friends (one of the ones I don't know--ha ha) mentioned having caramel bananas for breakfast that day. And I though I had created something new! I think when it comes to cooking there really is nothing new under the sun. But I still love making discoveries for myself, though I've been cooking for many decades.

If you try either of these recipes, please post a comment to let everyone know how you liked it.