Daily stresses and working in a Pastry lab requires us to fuel our body very well. One of my favorite ways is a good cold glass of chocolate milk. Since I have not found any product on the market which satisfies my desire for a well pronounced chocolate flavor I simply make my own mix. Not a dry mix since too often the cocoa floats in round spheres on the surface of the milk and it takes forever to homogenize. What I make is cocoa syrup made with water, cocoa, sugar and vanilla extract. I keep it at room temperature and I simply swirl it into any type of milk. Whether it is full fat or non fat, dairy, almond, soy or other, it all works the same. What you obtain is good healthy chocolate milk. Important to mention in case if you visualized this being a thick rich luxury type of chocolate milk that makes you think of diluted ganache…..
Good tasting high quality non alkalized cocoa can be a bit harder to find but it is what I use to make this chocolate milk. Non alkalized (natural) cocoa has a much higher antioxidant level compared to alkalized (also known as Dutched cocoa) and as I mentioned before we need to fuel our body well. During the alkalizing process many of the important polyphenolic compounds are destroyed (Only about 25% remain) which makes it less favorable for our body. Heat also destroys a lot of the good stuff and that is why I like to drink my milk cold and do not expose the cocoa to heat while preparing the cocoa syrup.
Non alkalized cocoa has a pH slightly above 5.50, medium alkalized has a pH near 7.30 and heavily alkalized cocoa has a pH near 7.9. Deep rich cocoa surely may make our genoise or chocolate cakes deep rich brown in color, but for a health aspect we are better off using non alkalized or a lightly alkalized cocoa. For a long time I used to thing that darker cocoa was made using better quality cocoa beans.
COCOA SYRUP RECIPE
| 8 oz | Water, filtered | 250 g | |
| 8 oz | Granulated sugar | 250 g | |
| Pinch | Salt | Pinch | |
| 2.5 oz | Non alkalized cocoa powder | 75 g | |
| 1 teaspoon | Vanilla extract | 5 g | |
- Bring the water, sugar and salt to a boil. Remove from heat and cool to 110°F ( 43°C)
- Whisk in the cocoa powder and the vanilla extract.
- Pour in a bottle and store at room temperature.
- Add the desired amount of the syrup to cold milk. Alternatively flavor an entire bottle of milk with the cocoa syrup.
I was just talking about this last night with Sarah about how a so-called, local cafe could improve their hot chocolate since their solution is to heat up chocolate milk with espresso steam (really sad to watch). I don’t know how a so-called cafe could be in business if they don’t know hot to make hot chocolate.
One thing’s for sure: I won’t forward this to them.
Yummy! I can’t wait to try this!
Ohhhhhhhh! SO looking forward to trying this! We love chocolate milk around here! It’ll be gone in no time!!
Thank you, Chef!!
Oh my! I was just remembering the many times you spoke to us about your wonderful chocolate syrup recipe. I LOVE chocolate milk! I cannot wait to make this delicious treat! Thank you so much Chef Eddy!
Chef that’s absolutely delicious!!! In fact i couldnt find non alkalized and i used dutch procces cocoa. However i found hersheys non alkalized from amazon. I hope that’s good! Thanks a lot for this recipe 🙂
Great picture, great colors and most important great contents, thank you Chef Eddy for posting.
I love chocolate milk, and this recipe is great!!! I will never use store syrup again. Thanks Chef! ; )
I’m not a big hot chocolate drinker because most mixes are too sweet for me. I love having this recipe and being able to adjust it to my taste! Thanks!
Thanks for posting this recipe! I made 3/4 of it and substituted the sugar with erythritol. (Come to think of it, I can’t remember if I decreased the amount of cocoa…oops). It has a really nice rich taste and isn’t too sweet. My syrup turned out more ganache-like though (still mixes with milk just fine)!
Nice cold and refreshing power drink treat. Its yummy and has the added benefits of the antioxident and calcium in the milk. Thanks Chef Eddy.
I make every sunday a chocotate drink and use cote d’or puur/fondant or cote d’or noir de noir but this must be taste great
Chef,
may i ask how long this is ok for left on the worktop in a UK kitchen. Also could you recommend ant brands of cocoa?
Thanks in advance
Chef,
may i ask how long this is ok for left on the worktop in a UK kitchen. Also could you recommend any brands of cocoa?
Thanks in advance
Chef Eddy,
You’ve been talking about this chocolate syrup for a while now in class… Now i have the recipe so i can try it… My family usually buys the powdered Nestle mix, but now they will be able to do it from scratch… Thanks!
This is such an improvement from having store-bought chocolate syrup! I think this is a wonderful recipe, and you can do a lot with this. Thanks!
now that i have a baby, i think harder about what i put into my body and what i will be giving to my son when he is old enough to eat real foods. in my home we love chocolate milk. It’ll be great to know exactly what is in my chocolate syrup.
Chef Eddy,
Awhile back neighbor asked me what brand of chocolate milk I buy…I seems her son asked her to “buy the kind of chocolate milk Mr. Johnny has at his house”. It was chocolate milk make with syrup from this recipe. I’ve used this recipe since you passed a copy of it out a few semesters ago, its excellent. I think the vanilla extract adds a layer of flavor that makes a difference.
Its a keeper, John
Thanks John! It is a favorite of mine too.
Eddy
I love cold chocolate milk. I also dont like flavor of the market s syrups. I will try it . just wondering how long the syrup can be stored on room tempreture? thank you chef.
My nutritionist recently recommended chocolate milk as the best drink to rehydrate and restore my body after long runs. While I love chocolate, I have yet to find chocolate milk I like primarily because of thick mouth feel. I look foward to trying this and from the other comments it may be a good motivator for those early mornings when my warm bed sounds much better than a long run.