How to Make Chocolate Milk, Nicaraguan Style (NOT the usual recipe–this is AWESOME)

I’ve got several videos showing you how to quickly make chocolate milk (trust me, just stick around and watch the first one), plus I’ve searched far and wide to find the bestestest EVAR chocolate milk recipe as well which is after the videos.

Chocolate milk sounds easy, just some chocolate and some milk, right? Nooooo: you try putting a chunk of chocolate in some milk and see if you get chocolate milk. Didn’t work, did it? I thought not. First, let’s learn about the traditional way of making chocolate milk (all you need is some Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup and some milk):

Awesome Chocolate Milk and Whip Christmas Drink (just in time for the holidays)

This is supposed to be non-alcoholic…fuck that shit, I’d put some Kahlua and maybe some vodka in this, but it’s still an awesome idea for a drink:

Two awesome chocolate milk recipes: one from the heartland of America, the other from…Nicaragua?

First, from The Pioneer Woman, we’ve got a recipe where you’re going to make your own chocolate syrup, and believe me, after you try

chocolate milk made with this stuff you’ll never want to use store-bought stuff ever again. All we’re going to do is make our own syrup with some cream and some quality semi-sweet chocolate and then use that to make chocolate milk the traditional way.

To make your own chocolate sauce you will need:

  • 1 Cup of Heavy Whipping Cream
  • 4 Ounces of Semi-Sweet Chocolate (if you use poor quality chocolate this won’t work, it’ll just be this chunky gunk that tastes like crap–I recommend Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate baking chips which most grocery stores carry, and if not then you can get it there from Amazon)
  • A pot to boil your chocolate concoction in

Heat the cream over medium-high heat on your stove until it has just barely begun to boil, then add the 4 ounces of chocolate pieces and turn off the heat. Mix slowly until the chocolate has completely melted and the mixture is a perfectly smooth syrup. Now, just use that as your syrup (about 1-2 tablespoons per glass is the recommended amount) for making chocolate milk as per the method in the first video (if there’s anything about that technique you’re confused by, I recommend you go back and watch it as many times as is necessary for clarification). Note: the syrup should be be good for about two weeks if it’s refrigerated (also, if the syrup is cold it may require some very vigorous stirring to get it fully mixed into the milk, but it will work).

The greatest chocolate milk recipe ever: Nicaraguan Chocolate Milk

This particular chocolate milk recipe will likely be familiar to most Nicaraguans but might seem a bit alien to the rest of us since it involves rice and raw cocoa beans–cocoa beans are a very common household ingredient in Nicaragua and as a result they are easily available in most markets there; you, however, might have a bit harder time finding some–if so, I highly recommend Navitas Naturals Organic Raw Chocolate Nibs (“nibs” are what the beans are called after they’ve been de-shelled and roasted) which you can get there from Amazon. The rice acts as a sort of thickener and the cinnamon gives it just a bit of extra spice that makes a big difference. Here’s what you’ll need (this makes about 10 servings):

  • 4 cups of water
  • 1 1/2 cups of long-grain white rice
  • 8 cups whole, low-fat, or nonfat milk (obviously, whole milk is recommended–my personal favorite brand is Promised Land)
  • 2 cups of cocoa beans
  • 3 cinnamon sticks (each about 3 inches long), broken into 1-inch pieces
  • 1 cup of sugar
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla extract
  • a bowl
  • a blender
  • cheesecloth
  • a strainer

Here’s what to do:

  1. Put the rice in a bowl with some cold water, cover it and let it stand for 24 hours, then drain.
  2. Put the cocoa beans in a metal baking pan and put it in a oven pre-heated to 500 degrees Fahrenheit for 5 minutes, then shake the beans (don’t burn your hands: use a pot-holder) and continue to bake then until they smoke and the skins have started to split (should be about an additional 5 to 8 minutes).
  3. Put half the rice, water, cocoa beans, and cinnamon into a blender and blend until the ingredients are very finely pureed.
  4. Then, place a large, fine strainer over a bowl and pour the cocoa mixture into the strainer and stir with a wooden spoon (or whatever you can find, I suppose) to extract the liquid.
  5. Rinse out the residue in the strainer and repeat this process with the remaining half of the cocoa, rice, water, and cinnamon.
  6. Now, rinse out the strainer and line it with a double thickness of damp cheesecloth. Pour the cocoa liquid through the strainer into a bowl, stirring again to extract all the liquid.

What you have in that bowl now is, essentially, your chocolate syrup that you’ll use to make the best chocolate milk you’ve ever had in your life (it still needs to be sweetened, mind you). To that syrup add the milk, vanilla extract, and sugar, then stir until the sugar dissolves. Drink it all at once and gain 5 pounds :mrgreen: .

Credit for this, by the way, actually goes to Sunset Magazine for this one, who originally published this recipe in their April, 1994 edition. I got the actual recipe from Dying for Chocolate and simply rewrote it in a much…better…way.

P.S. About the first video: I like boobies, I can’t help it. Sorry (though I doubt very many of you are genuinely upset about it).