I actually made something I pinned on Pinterest.

I even took pictures while I made it. And I am going to make this blog post about it and pin it in a folder I'm calling "Stuff I pinned and ACTUALLY DID!" The Dad says I won't do half the stuff I have pinned, so now I must do all of it. A few days ago I pinned a recipe for homemade Chocolate Syrup. The pin sent me here . We had bought a bottle of chocolate syrup last weekend but someone left it in the living room (yes the living room and oddly enough it wasn't poured all over everything in the living room) so I had to throw it away. I think I had to throw it away. In Julieland it was out of the fridge for too long and somehow became toxic. Anyway... we were out of chocolate syrup and apparently my kids are no longer able to drink milk without chocolate in it (even though they do all the time) so I decided I would try out the recipe. We even had an empty jar thanks to some tasty Classico Vodka Sauce (gotta look for a recipe to make my own).

Here is the empty jar. Isn't it pretty. I should have tried to remove the label. OOPS!

It was REALLY easy to make. The Princess was going to help but then Taz wanted to help and they were fighting so I kicked them both out of the kitchen. I just had to look through old blogs to find out that I called Taz, Taz. That name is sooooo not appropriate anymore. This is what I wrote almost 2 years ago

"The Baby is no longer the baby, he's been replaced by the new baby. I guess he needs a new name. I think I will go with Taz. He is by far the busiest kid I have ever had. What if they get worse each time. I can't even imagine what New Baby will be like if this is the case. I am SCARED."

Wow, how prophetic! Taz is such a sweet, mostly calm boy now. I think I will have to call him The Sweetie. The Baby is INSANE. He is like 1000 times worse than an actual Tasmanian Devil. The Dad is reading this as I type and just told me to use real names. That is no fun, but might be lots easier. Anyway... back to the syrup.

I made a double batch of syrup because the empty jar was ginormous and I didn't want to start out with it only being half full. It turns out a double batch was just a tiny bit too much for the jar. The dad just said we need a squeeze bottle for it. I need to blog when he isn't reading over my shoulder.

I started by mixing together the sugar and cocoa powder. The recipe said to whisk it to get rid of any lumps. My cocoa powder was really lumpy. Maybe because I bought the Kroger brand. I didn't get all my lumps out. I figured they would dissolve when I added water anyway.

Then I added the water and whisked it for what seemed like a thousand hours. The dad was watching me and said "it seems like it will never incorporate, but it will" and he was right. Apparently he has made this stuff before.

After it is mixed you have to boil it and then let it simmer for 5 minutes. You are supposed to stir frequently during this step. I have a bad attention span. I was also trying to make pasta with vodka sauce so the dad stepped in and stirred and stirred and stirred. He might have saved the syrup.

After it boiled and thickened it had to cool for 5 minutes and then we added the vanilla and poured it into the jar.

There was a little bit left in the pan so I dumped in some milk and made chocolate milk for the kids to dump all over the living room floor.

I think my jar of sauce looks beautiful. The Dad says I need to check it to see if it turned into hot fudge in the fridge because it could have boiled too long. If it did I might cry. Or we might just be making chocolate milk with hot fudge instead of chocolate syrup.

Here is the recipe (from Annie's Eats)

INGREDIENTS

1¼ cups sugar

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 cup water

¼ tsp. salt

2 tsp. vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS

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.