Foiled by Double Chocolate Bread Pudding but not by High Fructose Corn Syrup

While I fit in exercise session number 35 yesterday, I also fell victim to this decadent dessert, prepared by my lovely sister, and served with a side of cookie dough ice cream.

Close-up to appreciate the beauteous texture:

The recipe calls for 1.5 cups of chocolate syrup, with Hershey's as the recommended brand. However, the first ingredient in Hershey's Chocolate Syrup is High Fructose Corn Syrup, followed by more Corn Syrup. Yuck. 

I googled "healthy alternative to chocolate syrup" and found this simple recipe for making your own chocolate syrup on this blog "Art of Natural Living." Not only was this version super simple to make, requiring only a few ingredients, it actually tasted better than Hershey's syrup!

Homemade Chocolate Syrup

Ingredients

• 1 c water
• 1 1/2 c sugar
• 1 c cocoa
• 1 t vanilla

Directions
 
1.  Mix sugar and cocoa.
2.  Add water and bring to a boil,  pressing out any lumps with the back of a spoon.  Boil for a couple minutes.  Add vanilla.
3.  Cool and store in refrigerator.

Thanks to Art of Natural Living for this far superior alternative to store brand chocolate syrup. 

Replacing high fructose corn syrup, even in a double chocolatey dessert, made me feel better about indulging.