Chocolate Malteds
Most people who buy malt powder do so to make malteds, not homemade everything bagels. But days after making those bagels, I found myself with a perfectly good carton of malt powder and, having made a chickpea stew for dinner, I figured: "Hey, we deserve some chocolate malteds." Here's the thing about chocolate malteds: you don't make them with chocolate ice cream. You make them with vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup.
So, first things first, we had to make some chocolate syrup. Enter Dorie Greenspan and her chocolate syrup recipe. (Turns out this is a hot fudge sauce recipe, but it works!) If you have the ingredients on hand, and many of you might, you can have this done in 10 minutes.
If you are a patient and wise person, you will let this sauce cool before you make your chocolate malteds. Me? I waited as long as I could. Which is to say, it was still pretty warm when I made my chocolate malteds, but I figured: "What the heck?"
The rest is pretty self-explanatory if you've ever made a milkshake. Put a few scoops of vanilla ice cream in a blender:
Pour on some of that chocolate sauce, let's say 1/2 a cup? Probably more though. It's really a visual thing.
That's not a pretty picture. Neither is this one of me holding up malt powder:
But take a tablespoon of that and add it to the blender along with whole milk--if you use skim milk at this point, that's so silly, I don't even have words. You have ice cream and chocolate syrup in there, why skimp now on deliciousness? If you like a thick shake, pour milk so it only comes halfway up the ice cream. If you like a thinner shake, cover the ice cream with milk. Now blend!
Now the fun part: TASTE.
Not chocolatey enough? Add more syrup. Too thick? Add more milk. Not tasting that malt powder? Add more. Really, there's no perfect formula for a chocolate malted, it's really all about you and your needs. Are your needs being met in life? This chocolate malted can help.
Only thing's required when you're done: straws. If you don't have straws, don't even bother making chocolate malteds. If you want to be cheesy, you can put two straws in one glass and sit at your kitchen table and drink it down with your SIG OTH like an old episode of "Happy Days" (though on "Happy Days" nobody would use the term "SIG OTH" or put it in all-caps). More likely, you'll pour your chocolate malteds into two separate glasses, pop in the straws, bring them over to couch and watch an old episode of "Project Runway" and ponder how much that redheaded guy looks like the bad guy from The Incredibles. Happy slurping!
