Homemade Chocolate Syrup

I love it when I can easily make something at home and it turns out to be just as good or better than the more expensive store-bought kind. I’ve been wanting to try some homemade chocolate syrup.
The basic recipe is very simple, but there are a few variations of it, so the other day I decided to experiment with them and have a chocolate syrup taste test. Not a shabby way to spend the afternoon!
The one I liked the best was from Amy Dacyczyn’s The Complete Tightwad Gazette.
½ cup cocoa powder
1 cup water
2 cups sugar
⅛ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon vanilla
Mix the cocoa powder and the water in a saucepan. Heat and stir to dissolve the cocoa. Add the sugar, and stir to dissolve. Boil for 3 minutes over medium heat. Be careful not to let it get too hot and boil over! Add the salt and the vanilla. Let cool. Pour into a clean glass jar, and store in the refrigerator. Keeps for several months, but trust me it will be gone before then. Yields two cups.
The result is very rich, so I only use a teaspoon for a glass of chocolate milk.
I poured the chocolate into a flip-top glass bottle and added a label. These would make cute hostess gifts or party favors!
I’ve been gradually learning how to replace some of the foods we used to buy. My next cooking project is to figure out how to make gluten-free fish sticks. I’m thinking of fish coated with cereal crumbs? They need to look like they came out of a frozen-foods box, but not be so expensive that I fall over. Any suggestions?