Chocolate Sauce/Magic Shell

Once you've experienced life with chocolate sauce, there really is no going back.  Some things are just better covered in warm chocolaty goodness!  When I first started to go processed free, I thought that I would just have to learn to live without things like this because their ingredient list was so awful.  But, that was store bought chocolate sauce, not healthy homemade sauce.  My friend Staci shared her version of this classic finish and it has changed our lives.  Now desserts feel decadent and sinful without actually being so.

Equal parts:

cocoa powder

pure maple syrup

coconut oil

I usually make this in tablespoon portions (1 of each) because you don't typically need a lot at one time.  You must heat up the maple syrup and coconut oil or this will not be a smooth syrup.  Because coconut oil is solid at room temperature or colder, this needs to be at least slightly warm.  If you combine everything and it doesn't seem smooth enough, put the mixture in the microwave for a few seconds and it will make all the difference.  Below is a picture of only a tablespoon each, and you can see how much that makes.



  

I wanted to show how great this sauce is poured over desserts like the top picture.  That one shows a picture of my chocolate chocolate chip walnut zucchini muffins (recipe here) with this sauce, which was AMAZING!  But, I also wanted to show how this can become a kind of homemade magic shell when poured over something cold like ice cream.  





Here is my cleaned up vanilla ice cream (recipe here) topped with this sauce, and you can see that it is starting to harden because of the coconut oil.  It makes for a neat consistency when you eat it this way.  I promise you will not feel the least bit deprived with all this yumminess on your plate.  Enjoy!
 

By the way, this is not the kind of sauce to make chocolate milk with - that's different.  I'll share that recipe sometime soon too.