Chocolate Sundae Syrup

This recipe, the one our Mom used, produces, hands-down, the best-tasting chocolate sundae syrup I have ever enjoyed. I've been making it, myself, for nearly a half century. This sauce has a rich chocolate flavor and, despite the sugar, still retains a hint of dark chocolate overtones. And it's pretty simple to make.

Ingredients
1  Cup Hershey's Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
4  Cups Granulated Sugar
¼ Teaspoon Salt

2  Cups Water
1  Teaspoon Vanilla

Directions
1. In a suitably-sized saucepan, combine first three (dry) ingredients thoroughly. Mixing the powder into the sugar helps it to dissolve when the water is added in the next step.
2. Add Water and Vanilla and stir to mix well.
3. Heat to boiling, mixing continuously.
4. Simmer for three minutes, stirring often.

Serve
Hot or cold, over ice cream or whatever comes to mind
Mix into hot or cold milk

Store
In refrigerator.

;^)

Bowl me over

So, the other day I was sitting outside my rig, staring at the mountains and I’d let my mind off its leash. The old gray mass was wandering around, listening to the wind, looking at cloud shapes, sniffing the fresh air—when all of a sudden it whirls around and rushes back to me with this question:

Why do we serve pancakes on a plate?

Then you spend the entire meal chasing down errant syrup with the pancake bits you’ve impaled on your fork. Even expending all that effort, there’re still puddles of pancake syrup scattered about the plate when all the pancakes are gone.

Now I’m sure you, like I, learned in high school physics that pancakes and waffles posses the requisite properties allowing them to soak up all but the most over-thickened, bland-tasting, maple syrup substitutes. And I’m sure you, like I, have carried out the experiments proving these properties, taking note of how the bottom-most pancake absorbs the sucrose or fructose suspensions (i.e., syrup) with which it may come in contact.

How best, I wondered, to take advantage of these properties?

Eureka! I thought, serve pancakes in a bowl!

Concentrate the syrup to the center. Then, when you cut down through a stack and lift a section past your lips, you’ll be transferring saturation-point layers fully laden with maximum syrupy succulence.

I tried this out, using fried shredded wheat (Yes, Fried Shredded Wheat.) as my test medium. Works perfectly.

;^)