Chocolate or Carob, Sauce or Syrup

"I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for."

Charles Dickens

My food processor is dead.  As dead as a door-nail.  I killed it.

Chocolate sauce requires no food processor. 

 

CHOCOLATE OR CAROB, SAUCE OR SYRUP

 

 This is one recipe with 2 options resulting in 4 variations.
I list them seperately so I don't forget what I'm doing and muddle things up somewhere in the middle of the proceedings.
 The sauces are thicker and can be spooned from a jar. The syrups are thinner, can be poured from a bottle, and can be stirred into drinks.

Chocolate Sauce:

1 cup Cocoa Powder
1 cup Water
2 cups Sugar ~ 1 1/2 C for a darker sauce, mmm
1/2 tsp Salt
2 tsp Vanilla
Optional:    1 Tbsp Lecithin Granules

  Carob Sauce:

  1 cup Carob Powder
  1 cup Water
  1 cup Sugar
  1/2 tsp Salt
  2 tsp Vanilla
  Optional:    1 Tbsp Lecithin Granules

Chocolate Syrup:

1 cup Cocoa Powder
2 cups Water
2 cups Sugar
1/2 tsp Salt
2 tsp Vanilla 
 Optional:    1 Tbsp Lecithin Granules

  Carob Syrup:

  1 cup Carob Powder
  2 cups Water
  1 cup Sugar
  1/2 tsp Salt
  2 tsp Vanilla
   Optional:    1 Tbsp Lecithin Granules

    Condensed Directions:

    Whisk water and cocoa or carob together.
    On medium heat, stir until cocoa or carob dissolves.
    Add sugar, stir until dissolved.

    Bring to boil. 

    Reduce to medium low. 

    Boil 3 minutes.
    Remove from heat.

    Stir in salt and vanilla, whisk in opt. Lecithin.

Expanded Directions:

In a 2 quart saucepan, mix the Cocoa or Carob Powder and Water with a whisk (don't use a smaller saucepan;  you need room for the Sauce or Syrup to boil up).

Heat the Cocoa or Carob Water over medium heat, stirring until the Cocoa or Carob Powder is dissolved.

When the Cocoa or Carob Powder has dissolved, add the Sugar and continue to stir until the Sugar is dissolved.

Stirring regularly, bring the mixture to a full boil.  If you're afraid of it getting wild and boiling over on you, stir it constantly.

Reduce the heat to medium low and boil for a full 3 minutes, stirring regularly.  You can boil it longer so long as you do not allow it overboil or burn; it will simply get thicker.

Watch carefully so as not to allow it to over-boil at any point.  Or again stir it constantly if you like.

Remove the syrup from the heat.

Add the Salt and Vanilla, stirring to blend. Whisk in the optional Lecithin Granules.  

Now you are going to need to pour your lovely Sauce or Syrup in something.

 

If you have made Sauce, store it in a jar.

If you have made Syrup, you can store it in a bottle.

If you are using a plastic bottle or jar, COOL the Sauce or Syrup before pouring it into your clean container.

If you are using a glass container, you can pour it in hot IF the glass is one that can take the heat and it is clean and you have pre-heated it.  See NOTES!

Put a good lid on your jar or bottle of Sauce or Syrup and store it in the refrigerator.

Shake the Syrup before pouring!  It settles, particularly the Carob Syup which sometimes needs quite a bit of shaking to get all mixed back up.
  

 

NOTES! 

 

If you want to pour your Chocolate or Carob Sauce or Syrup into a glass container while it is yet hot, please do so safely!  You must choose a glass container that is able to withstand the heat; mason jars are a good choice.  You must preheat it.  You don't want to shatter it!  What I do:  Whilst making the Sauce or Syrup, put a kettle on to boil.  Make sure the glass jar (or bottle) is clean.  Place a small wood cutting board in the sink. Fill the jar with very hot tap water and set it and the (upsidedown) lid on the board.  When the water boils, empty the jar and place it back on the board in the sink, then drizzle a little boiling water about onto the glass to heat it up more, then fill it and the lid with the boiling water.  Empty the lid and turn over onto a clean towel or rack to dry.  Leave the hot water in the glass jar until you are ready to fill it with the syrup or sauce.  Carefully, with potholders on, empty out the water from the jar, return the jar to its secure sink-bottom location on the board and fill it with your hot sauce or syrup or whatever substance you have made,  Put the lid on, though you don't need to tighten it yet unless you want a hard time opening it later; allow to cool, tighten the lid, and refrigerate.  Do not set hot glass on a cold surface (or vice versa)!

Want something a bit more? Spice it up! Perhaps add orange zest. For a little heat, chipotle chili powder is good; my husband thinks a lot is great but I can only bear a pinch. For a Mexican hot chocolate flavour add cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice.

Use whatever sugar you like, dry or liquid forms are both fine though amounts to achieve the desired sweetness will be different; I use organic evaporated cane juice.

Adjust proportions to your liking:  Thinner, more water;  Thicker, less water.  Sweeter, more sugar and/or less cocoa or carob;  Darker, less sugar and/or more cocoa or carob.

If you alter the quantity of cocoa or carob, alter the portions of salt and vanilla proportionately.

If you like your chocolate syrup sweet, you can make it like Hillbilly Housewife does;  hers "is remarkably similar to Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup in the can".

Please assure your Cocoa is from a slave-free source in order to not unwittingly further brutal modern-day slavery of children. How? Buy chocolate that is identified as fair-trade, organic, or country of origin outside of the Ivory Coast. For more information see Is There Slavery In Your Chocolate?

If you use the Lecithin, please assure it is non-gmo!  God and nature did a good job of making things the first time around.

I adapted my recipe from:http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/chocolatesyrup.htm

 

Too Long of a Rambling

 

I first posted this recipe and rambling April 26, then removed them along with all other posts until I sorted out what I was doing a bit better. Not that I know what I'm doing now, and it would be lovely to have means to post photos too . . .  but anyway now I'm going to try to get those old posts up again, and since I'm making up a batch of carob sauce this ones first. Oh, food processor has been buried, as yet it has no successor.

Facts must be faced.  The fact of the matter is, my food processor is dead.  As dead as a door-nail.

In Loving Memory

I think I may have killed it.  The food processor, that is.  This is bad.  It is bad to senselessly kill a usable item.  But I did not pay enough attention to my food processor as it was left to process a difficult workload . . . black beans for a batch of Black Bean Chocolate Brownies . . . .  Then it stopped.  It stopped and it will not start again.  It's been a couple of days now.  I had been noticing that it was beginning to show signs of age, but I'm sure it had a lot more life left.  Until I killed it.  And now I miss it.  And need to save up for a new one.

How to console myself?  Obviously with something that does not require the use of a food processor  (like everything I'd been planning to bake today and tomorrow does)!  Something I can make without danger of destroying something else, something oh so simple and oh so easy, something that won't disappear immediately, something to make everybody love me, something . . . chocolate.  Ah, I have it!  Chocolate Sauce! The entire household is comprised of affirmed chocoholics who give me hugs and kisses when I'm making Chocolate Sauce, literally they do.  Guests, too, melt over this humble homemade concoction;  When I simply serve it on some berries and whipped cream they think I'm amazing, yet I've done almost nothing.  So I can go from Food Processor Killer to Chocolate Sauce Heroine just like that.  Yes, Chocolate Sauce is the answer.

You will be ruined if you have only had store-bought chocolate sauce before.  This recipe adjusts easily to make Chocolate Sauce, Carob Sauce, Chocolate Syrup, or Carob Syrup;  all are highly prized in my household (carob has no caffeine and does not have the bitterness of cocoa so less sugar is used with it, thus it's usually what we make for the children).  They all go in the refrigerator. Since the sauce can then be difficult to pour and to get  mixed into cold milk, such a vital quality in the eyes of the young ones, we make a syrup that will pour and mix easily; we store it in pretty hinge-top glass bottles.  The sauce is thicker and spoons out of the jar once it has completely chilled; it is nice for running atop things (like strawberries and whipped cream), and we keep it pretty mason jars.  (My idea of pretty can be quite utilitarian.)

Now I am off to assuage my guilt with Chocolate Sauce making.  Still, the bread and brownies I wanted to experiment with this week cannot be made, nor can other things that are normally part of our food-chain, and, at the end of the day, I've sent a previously perfectly good food processor to the dump and it was a present from my children, what an ingrate I am, and it's going to take a pretty penny to replace it.  So be kind to your food processor.  Unless you don't have one.  Like me.  Anymore.