Chocolate Egg Cream

+ a dairy free chocolate syrup

Originally published January 2016

I know, you're thinking "stop it, already". You're trying to stick to your healthy eating resolutions, and here I am sharing my chocolate egg cream recipe with you. Good news for us both—egg creams aren't a calorie-laden treat. In fact, you can even make them dairy free, thanks to the recipe I’m sharing below.

Egg creams are part of any good Brooklyn upbringing. They're as quintessentially New York as black and white cookies. And both are viewed as somewhat of an oddity outside of NYC. My vote for best is the long shuttered Dave's Luncheonette in Chinatown. It's been decades since I sipped one of their egg creams (I was a vanilla egg cream gal back then), but like my first crush, the memory lives on forever. Lou Reed even mentioned them in a song, which is news to me, so we never stop learning, it seems (also, I should come out of my cave more often).

So, what do you need to make my chocolate egg cream recipe? For starters, eggs need not apply. And cream, well, you're not invited to this party, either.

Start by making my homemade chocolate syrup. Purists will tell you it must be Fox's U-bet or all bets are off. I say phooey to high fructose corn syrup, but will share a secret. If you buy U-bet's during Passover, you can find it made with real sugar. You'll need to read the label, and make sure it's labeled kosher for Passover. I forget where I learned that, but there you have it!

Now that we've got the syrup covered, you'll also need milk (your choice, see the recipe below), and a FRESHLY opened bottle of seltzer. A brand spanking new bottle of seltzer is NOT NEGOTIABLE. I know, there I go with the all caps again. If you skimp, and decide to use that already opened bottle sitting in your fridge, then erase all hopes of getting that fizzy head on top.

One last important note when it comes to egg creams. You want to down this baby. No slow sipping, and savoring. They're meant to be sipped at light speed before the seltzer's bubbles dissipate. Trust me on this one.

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