Saturday Share: Homemade Chocolate Syrup

Confession time. I love chocolate milk.

Sometimes, I would indulge my taste buds by pouring some Hershey's Chocolate Syrup into a glass of milk.

That's the best dessert anyone can make in under a minute.

However, once I got serious about eliminating artificial ingredients from the family diet, my fave chocolate syrup had to go.

Here's why: Sugar, Potassium Sorbate (Preservative), Salt, Mono- and Diglycerides, Xanthan Gum, Polysorbate 60, Vanillin, and Artificial Flavor.

If you're a chemist or a nutritionist, you might know what those ingredients are. I'm just an amateur nutritionist, but I do know that Xanthan gum is a type of sugar made from a bacteria through a process of fermentation.

The FDA considers it generally safe which actually means some may be "sensitive" to it. If you're the unfortunate person who is sensitive, Xanthan gum can cause bloating, flatulence, and diarrhea. (So does guar gum which is in just about everything that's supposed to be thickened.)

So I started making my own using this Cocoa Syrup Recipe which I'll share below. You can skip down to the recipe if you don't want to read the scoop on common ingredients that have found their way into our food.

First, I want to talk about Hershey's Simply 5 Chocolate Syrup, a new product with only 5 ingredients that are labeled Non-GMO. Those ingredients are sugar, organic invert syrup, water, cocoa, and natural vanilla flavor.

That sounds good, but I wondered what invert syrup was. I looked it up.

Invert Syrup

An ingredient used as a sweetener in foods, just as table sugar, maple syrup, or high fructose corn syrup is used. It's derived from table sugar, scientifically known as sucrose.

Sucrose is a disaccharide, meaning it's made of 2 different individual sugar molecules attached together. Sucrose has glucose and fructose attached together.

Invert sugar is made by breaking the bonds between the glucose and fructose through a chemical reaction called hydrolysis. That results in a solution that is half free glucose and half free fructose.

The part that bothers me is the hydrolysis. The past tense of hydrolysis is hydrolyzed as in hydrolized vegetable protein, hydrolyzed yeast, and other hydrolyzed ingredients in food.

(Some hydrolyzed ingredients result in a "second cousin of MSG." I'm allergic to MSG so I don't want it or its cousin in anything I eat.)

This hydrolysis of sucrose results in a solution of half free glucose and half free fructose. The chemical reaction uses water (for the hydrogen) along with heat, enzymes, or acids. It's considered generally safe.

I was tempted to try the Simply 5 chocolate syrup, but in the end, I decided an ingredient created in a lab isn't something I want in my food if I can avoid it. So I'll stick with my recipe for chocolate syrup.

Homemade Chocolate Syrup

mug-2597167_1280_by StockSnap, Pixabay

• 1 1/2 cups of water at room temperature
• 3 cups of sugar
• 1 1/2 cups of Hershey Cocoa Powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons of light corn syrup, i.e., white Karo Syrup
• 1/2 tablespoon of vanilla extract

Directions

1. In a saucepan, mix the water and the sugar. Bring to a boil.
2. Using a whisk, mix in the cocoa powder,stirring well until the powder is dissolved.
3. Add the salt and corn syrup, whisking well until everything is combined.
4. Lower the heat, add the vanilla, and simmer the mixture until the sauce reduces. It should thicken slightly.
5. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature.
6. Pour into a glass jar with a lid or pour into a squeeze bottle. Regardless of the bottle you use, store it in the refrigerator.

Takeaway Truth

Perfect for adding to milk or serving over ice cream. More importantly to me, it doesn't have questionable ingredients.

Saturday Share

Join me every Saturday when I share a recipe, a household or organizational tip, or a short cut to make life easier for you! Enjoy your weekend.

Who Created the Law & Order Theme

Several TV channels replay the various Law and Order shows. As soon as you hear those famous 2 notes play, you know, the "Donk Donk," you know an episode from one of the Law and Order series is starting.

The sound is heard at the beginning of the show then again whenever a major scene change occurs, accompanied by a black title card with white text describing the new scene.

I wondered who was the genius who created such a memorable, iconic sound.

One source said the sound was created to be an audible symbol of a jail cell door slamming shut.

IMDb.com posted that the sound, created by Mike Post, was made "by combining close to a dozen sounds, including that of a group of monks stamping on a floor."

Mike Post is an American multi-Grammy and Emmy-winning composer. He's best known for his TV theme songs for series such as Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU, The A-Team, NYPD Blue, Renegade, The Rockford Files, L.A. Law, Quantum Leap, Magnum, P.I., and Hill Street Blues.

Although I read various articles, I couldn't find a specific statement from Mike Post, who made the sound, or from Dick Wolf, the show runner who went to the well-known Mr. Post, about exactly how the "Donk Donk" sound was made.

However, there were comments on many of the articles from sound engineers who offered their own explanations of what was used to make the sound.

In the meantime, enjoy the sound of the "Donk Donk" in this very short video.



Takeaway Truth

Music brands TV shows into our subconscious.

Another New BookBrush Feature

Last week I reviewed the most recent features BookBrush offers.

Before the digital ink aged even a little, BookBrush has added another great feature to the Plus and Professional Plans.

I'll sprinkle some images around this post to illustrate what they mean by saved templates.

The April Fool Bride image to left was saved as a template.

I opened that image from my saved templates, selected to change cover, selected the LuvU4Ever cover, and voilà. It was done.

Took about a minute to do because all my covers are saved on my BookBrush dashboard.

Latest Feature

Starting this month (September), BookBrush increased the maximum number of saved templates from 25 to 50 for the Plus and Professional Plan users!

That means I can create 50 images, save them on my account, and then simply swap out the book cover when I need to create an image for a different book.

If I've created an image using Custom Creator, with a "picture" background, and saved it as a template, I can swap out the background and the text too if I wish.

I can also keep the background and change the cover image and/or the "frame" for the cover if I wish.

At right you can see a background layout using the same picture with 2 different covers and text boxes.

This was done in a matter of minutes. Easy peasy.

I love being able to save up to 50 images I've made as templates because you don't have to "reinvent the wheel" each time.

If you just want to have 3D images in an ereader, cell phone, or iPad "frame," it's easy to do. Make them, save them, and download them.

If you save the 3D image as a template, you can just change the cover in the frame when you need to make a different 3D image. Now that's a time saver that you'll love.

At right you can see what I mean by making 3D "cell phone" framed images. I made one and saved it as a template.

When I needed another 3D "cell phone" framed image, I opened the saved image, removed the cover, and put another cover in it.. So easy to make all these images and download each.

If you're a subscriber, then you know already that BookBrush is offering webinars with live training on how to make your BookBrush images look professional. When you get an email notice of this, be sure and sign up because spots go fast.

Takeaway Truth

If you're not using BookBrush, you're not taking advantage of one of the best design tools available to authors.

Blog Tips: Use Keywords in Blogging for SEO

Keywords in Blogging...Search Engine Optimization...SEO? These blog tips are what you need to make your blogging more rewarding and increase traffic to your quality content. 

De-mystify Keyword

Let's take away the intimidation factor. What is a keyword?

"Keyword is a word or concept of great significance, a word that acts as the key to a cipher or code, or an informative word used in an information retrieval system to indicate the content of a document."

See, that's not intimidating at all. Even though the first two parts of the definition—word or concept of great significance and a word that acts as a key to a cipher or code—are accurate, the last part of the definition is what we'll focus on.

"An informative word used in an information retrieval system to indicate the content of a document..."

Yes, that's exactly what we're talking about today. When you list a book for publication, you select keywords. When you set up a blog and/or a post on the blog, you select keywords. Usually on blogs, those keywords are called Labels or Tags, but they're really keywords in disguise.

When you think about keywords as "informative words used in an information retrieval system to indicate the content of a document," the whole issue of using keywords makes sense, doesn't it?

You want to have words that readers would use in searching for a post, a blog, a website, or a book that fits those words.

Mark, an online friend who is the main editor of T-Ranks has a great article, How to Get Backlinks, 9 Most Effective Strategies. Backlinks are another effective tool that should be a part of your SEO strategy.

FIRST, plan a post & select keywords BEFORE writing

Using Keywords In Blogging

There are simple ways to make your blog post "pop up" when someone browsing online is looking for the subject of your post.

1. Always think about the content of your post.

What is it about? What words would describe the subject of the post? Pick out 3 or 4 words that tell someone what is contained in your post. For instance, in this post I've written, keywords would be: keywords, blogging, blog tips, SEO.

2. Once you've selected the keywords check to see if you actually used them.

Keywords that "indicate the content of your document" should be in: the post title, first sentence, and first paragraph.

3. If you didn't use them, edit your post to include them.

Keywords should be in your title, your first sentence, and first paragraph. You want your chosen keywords to especially be in the title. Here's why.

The most common web crawler is Googlebot. It looks at the entire title, but it only registers the first 65 characters.

Those 65 characters are what a user sees when your page appears in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Web Spiders, Crawlers, and Bots—Oh My!

Automated bots called web spiders or crawlers, index everything on the internet, looking for new content from the last time they crawled your blog or website.

When your keywords are crawled in the title and then again in the first sentence/paragraph, they're "registered" in a positive way and your post can rise to the top listings in the SERPs.

Takeaway Truth

Thinking of keywords this way—informative words used in an information retrieval system to indicate the content of a document—will help you easily choose them every time.

Now you can click over and check out Mark's post about backlinks: How to Get Backlinks, 9 Most Effective Strategies.

Most Read Post: 10 Best Smells

Photo by jonas mohamadi from Pexels

I wondered which of the thousands of posts I've written and pubished continue to be read.

I did a quick scroll through the years and saw several with over 2,000 views.

The post that seems to be most popular, with 3,116 views to date, was published in August 2005.

I thought I'd republish it here today—not because I'm lazy, but because I'm a little short of time to write something new.

(Okay, maybe I am a bit lazy after the Labor Day Holiday.)

Here it is in its entirety. (You can see it's a but dated with my reference to micro cassette recording.)

10 Best Smells in the World

Recently, I visited my local, friendly Office Depot for toner. Why friendly? Because so many fresh-faced, young people ask me if I need help finding anything that I'm tempted to make a micro cassette recording of, "no, thank you" and punch play when they start stalking me with their good intentions.

Down the center of the store were the back to school specials, and the smell of Crayons washed over me, whisking me back to all the years I'd participated in the annual rite known as shopping for school supplies.

Of the five senses, smell is particularly interesting. My romance novel Scents and Sensuality has a heroine who is a perfumer by trade. I found the research fascinating.

I'm sure all of you have smelled something and immediately remembered something linked to that smell.

I can catch a whiff of Estee Lauder Youth Dew and I immediately think of my mom. That was her signature perfume when I was a kid.

Of all our senses, smell is the most primitive and is hard-wired into our brain which accounts for the smell-memory connection. Pheromones, those "invisible" smells account for probably 99% of love at first sight.

So here's my list of the 10 best smells in the world not in any particular order.

1. A freshly bathed baby
2. Crayola crayons
3. Johnson baby powder
4. New mown grass
5. Old-fashioned roses in the garden
6. My mom's homemade mayhaw jelly cooking on the stove
7. Chanel No. 5 (Love that old movie Seven Year Itch where Marilyn Monroe says: "That's their highest number.")
8. Clean clothes drying on a clothesline in the sun
9. Really old, single malt Scotch
10. Baking bread

You may be wondering why I've used a couple of coffee graphics to illustrate this post, but I didn't list freshly-brewed coffee as one of the 10 best smells.

Since I truly love the aroma of brewing coffee, I'll make it a #11 on my list. But only if it's Dunkin' Donuts Coffee, my all-time favorite morning beverage.

By the way, did you know that the health benefits of coffee come from drinking it within 20 minutes of its brewing?

Takeaway Truth

What's on your list?

In Some Ways, Publishing Is Unchanged

I was reading a quote I posted several years ago. I think it's still true about traditional publishing.

I also think the situation described in this quotation is why so many authors embraced indie self-publishing.

"There can hardly be a stranger commodity in the world than books. Printed by people who don't understand them; sold by people who don't understand them; bound, criticized and read by people who don't understand them; and now even written by people who don't understand them." —Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Who Was Lichtenberg?

He wasn't a modern man. He was born in 1742 and grew up to teach physics, mathematics, astronomy, and other subjects. He did research in many fields: geophysics, volcanology, meteorology, chemistry, astronomy, and mathematics to name a few.

Primarily, he's remembered for his work in physics. His only true scientific discovery though was related to electricity. In 1777, he found that discharges of static electricity formed patterns in bits of dust.

Those patterns were called Lichtenberg figures and were of no use to him, but they became the basic principle used in modern photocopying machines.

He's also remembered for thousands of pithy sayings. Actually, I think he's remembered more for his creative witticisms since he's considered a mere footnote in scientific history.

Takeaway Truth

I find it a bit comforting someone a few hundred years ago felt the same way writers often felt about publishers.

Then ebook technology came along and changed things.

Interesting Book & Author Facts

Since we did Labor Day celebration yesterday, today I'm kind of working and kind of goofing off.

The goofing off part is watching documentary about Vikings.

The kind of working is adding content to my ebook, Little Book of Sunshine. I'll republish it in a few days and will give away a bunch of free copies when I do.

Even though it says, "for Writers," you, as a Reader, will probably find these amusing tidbits about authors, writing, and books entertaining too.

Random Facts from Little Book of Sunshine

In the last 7 years of his life, Thomas Hardy took no baths. (Yes, he's the man who wrote Far from the Madding Crowd. (Is there a connection between those 2 facts?)

John Grisham received 28 rejections for A Time to Kill.

Jonathan Swift went a full year without speaking to anyone.

Lord Byron set his hair in curlers at night.

Mary Higgins Clark had her first short story rejected 40 times. (That was back when there were more than 40 publishers to whom she could submit.)

Charles Dickens detested being called Grandpa.

Frank is the real first name of Mickey Spillane.

Teodor Josef Konrad Korzeniowski is the real name of Joseph Conrad, author of Heart of Darkness and other classics.

L. M. Olenhewitz is Jules Verne.

The Admiration Authors Have for Other Authors

Harold Robbins said about Ernest Hemingway: “Hemingway is a jerk.”

Tolstoy said about Nietzsche: “Nietzsche was stupid and abnormal.”

Truman Capote had less than admiration for just about everyone so I won’t single out an individual for his caustic comments.

Takeaway Truth

I'll finish with what Kurt Vonnegut said: “I’d rather have written Cheers than anything I’ve written.”