Homemade Chocolate Syrup

I have a 5-year old son that loves chocolate milk.  The Nestle Quick powder can get expensive, so I went in search of a recipe to make my own chocolate milk syrup from cocoa powder.  I tried several recipes that were rejected by my taste-tester (the aforementioned 5-year old), but finally found this versions of this recipe from Small Notebook and Hillbilly Housewife that works great!

Homemade Chocolate Syrup

1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 cup water
2 cups sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 to 1/2 tsp vanilla (depending on your choice)

Mix cocoa powder and water in a boiler over low heat.  Once cocoa powder is dissolved, add sugar and bring to a boil.  Boil for three minutes.  Remove from heat and add salt and vanilla.  Stir well.  Allow the syrup to cool and pour into a mason jar or other jar for storage in the refrigerator.

This syrup not only makes great chocolate milk, it also is great over ice cream, apple pie, banana splits, well, just about anything!