I’m raising, let’s say, “discriminating” palates. My kid started complaining about the Quik we’d been providing. And he told me this morning, in response to the new Hershey’s syrup we picked up over the weekend, that I “wasted a cup of milk.”
He’s not wrong. And I got nothing against making hot chocolate properly. But every morning as ritual? I can’t sign up for that, unless it can be made to be efficient somehow.
Thoughts?
My experience is that the only solution is to make your own batches and store it. No good commercially available option that is milk-soluble at cold temps.
I love U-bet, but that’s a malted syrup with a totally different flavor than true chocolate milk.
I’m afraid this sounds reasonable. That allegro coffee product looks to be a prepared drink and that solution would likely exceed my annual wine budget.
I’m going to wind up making a weeks worth of ganache every monday morning, aren’t I. Eventually these kids wind up cooking for me, right?
You can probably make it last longer if you use potassium sorbate, like the commercial manufacturers do. You could probably basically dupe their recipe, but swap in high quality cocoa, and get something awesome with long shelf life in the fridge.
The Allegro product is made to mix. It is not a prepared drink.
oh. well then I’ll certainly check it out. thx!
The best drinking chocolate I have ever had is from Spain. Bars that you melt down to make the syrup.
Blanxart Chocolate a la Taza from La Tienda is probably the closest to that I had in San Sebastian. Put the milk in the microwave to heat and add a piece or two of chocolate a la taza. They also have a powered form you can buy from La Tienda. It would probably make chocolate milk.
Resetting this:
While it is of course possible to make chocolate milk from drinking chocolate, it is a giant PitA because the milk needs to be heated and then cooled again, and almost always you end up with lots of butter on the bottom of the glass.
If you’re talking about a guy’s kid, then ideally what you want is a syrup that you can keep in the fridge and is soluble in milk at fridge temp. That basically rules out chocolate - drinking or otherwise. Instead, the best solution is syrup made with cocoa powder, which is what hersheys is. There are recipes for that online - basically vanilla, cocoa, water, corn syrup, sugar. If you have a tab of sorbate lying around (if not, it’s readily available from any brewing/winemaking store) you can add it to the syrup and it will have the mythical shelf life of a twinkie. Even without it should keep very well in the fridge.
DavidZ. They have a powdered form of the Chocolate a la Taza. Never tried it but worth a go. I would hate to make any concoction that has tons of corn syrup. Personal thing however.
If you use the Karo lite, that has no high-fructose syrup in it. You could also make it with agave or simple syrup and it will be totally soluble, just will look a little gnarly compared to the smooth sheen of a corn syrup based chocolate syrup.
Even powdered drinking chocolate requires warm milk to dissolve and often doesn’t dissolve fully unless you are mixing on a heat source. (FWIW, my experience on this comes from craving the occaisional chocolate milk at work. Powdered drinking chocolate, even with hot milk I warm in the microwave, doesn’t fully dissolve - but if stirred in a saucepan on the stove, it will. Syrup, on the other hand, dissolves easily even in cold milk.
I’ll put a couple of spoonfuls of Valrhona cocoa powder and sugar in a coffee mug, add a bit of hot coffee and whisk to make a thick but smooth slurry, continue to add a little more coffee while stirring, then add whole milk and microwave until hot, then whisk again. Takes almost as little time as using a syrup or mix. David you’re correct, the chocolate doesn’t dissolve completely, but it’s pretty good, and my kids approve.
A low-risk option would be to try TJ’s Organic Midnight Moo. It’s not “drinking chocolate,” but it is tasty. Our little ones like it.
Ingredients: organic sugar, water, organic cocoa, organic nonfat milk, organic vanilla, xanthan gum, organic soy lecithin, citric acid.
http://www.sanderscandy.com/Bakery-Coffee-Cocoa-s/1513.htm
Also, theirextra dark chocolate ice cream topping is crazy good
How is agave any better than HFCS, when it has a higher percentage of fructose?
This
I don’t think it is any different, but then again, the whole HFCS-scare is BS anyways. Just saying it’s an option.