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This New York Egg Cream recipe post is sponsored.
There are a few things that are classic New York. Bacon, egg, and cheese on a roll. Pizza. Bagels. Times Square on New Year’s. Broadway. Soda shops. Egg creams.
If you’ve never lived in New York, or had a relative who lived in New York, you may not even know about an egg cream. Which is a complete misnomer, by the way. There’s no egg in it. Or cream.
So, what is a New York Egg Cream?
A New York Egg Cream is a drink with three ingredients: milk, seltzer, and chocolate syrup.
That sounds simple, but it’s not. There are rules to the egg cream. Lots of rules.
First, your ingredients must be cold. Like, straight out of the fridge cold.
Second, the order of the ingredients is so important. (We’ll get to that in a minute.)
Third, you have to use whole milk.
Fourth, you’re not allowed to drink it with a straw.
And finally, to purists, you can only use Fox’s U-Bet Original Chocolate Syrup. Personally, I’m gonna say you can use any chocolate syrup as long as it’s cold.
I will, however, advocate that you use fresh homemade seltzer water though. We have a Soda Stream, which we love. What we don’t love about it is that we have to hike the heavy empty CO2 containers back to the store to exchange them.
So I’m super excited that we found Soda Sense.
With Soda Sense, you receive one (or two, depending on your plan) CO2 containers in the mail. Save the box they come in. When they’re empty, return them using the original box (yay! Less waste!). Then, Soda Sense will ship you full containers back.
Now, on to that egg cream recipe …
New York Egg Cream Ingredients:
- 1/3 cup whole milk
- 2/3 cup seltzer water
- 2 tablespoons chocolate syrup
How To Make A New York Egg Cream:
Keep in mind that this recipe is a little bit of an estimate. You want to use around a 10-ounce glass for this, preferably a soda shop glass or, at the very least, a glass that’s wider at the top than it is at the bottom.
So, depending on the size of your glass, you might not be able to fit all the liquid in your cup. And if you can’t, it’s more important to eyeball it than to actually worry about the exact amounts.
So, pour the milk in the bottom of the glass. The milk should be about an inch high.
As we said in rule number three, it has to be whole milk. Don’t use skim or fat free.
Pour the seltzer water into the center of the glass, stopping about a half inch from the top.
Vigorously stir the drink until a beautiful foam forms on the top. The foam will expand, which is why a glass with a wider top is important.
Pour the chocolate syrup on to a spoon and very gently — keeping the spoon as close to the side of the glass as possible — put the spoon in the bottom of the glass.
Then, gently (so completely the opposite of the last step) stir the chocolate syrup into the bottom of the drink. Avoid getting it into the foam at all costs.
What’s so important is you preserve the white, foamy layer on top.
New York Egg Cream Recipe Frequently Asked Questions
What does a New York Egg Cream taste like?
A New York Egg Cream tastes like malted chocolate. It’s a really light drink, which you might not expect because drinks with milk are usually heavy.
It sort of tastes like a fizzy milkshake, with an emphasis on the fizzy side.
Why is it called an Egg Cream?
At this point, you’ve realized an egg cream is a funny name for this drink. And you’re probably wondering why this is called an egg cream and not milky chocolate seltzer water.
According to imbebe magazine, there are a couple theories, but no one knows the truth.
Theory 1 is that One theory is that Boris Thomashevsky, a Yiddish theater star, asked for a drink he had in Paris: a chocolat et crème. That’s hard to say, so the name didn’t translate over, and only the “crème” stuck.
Theory 2 is that the words “echt keem,” which mean “pure sweetness” in Yiddish were Americanized to be pronounced “egg cream.”
And finally, Theory 3 is that the real name is “a cream,” but it’s said with such a heavy Brooklyn accent, so it sounds like, “egg cream” to the rest of America.
I can actually really see that. My uncle from Brooklyn pronounces the hard yet invisible r on the end of “soda,” so Brooklynese really is a dialect of its own.
Just to confuse things even more, Merriam-Webster says back in the late 1800’s, around the same time as the Boris Thomashevsky story, there were actually egg creams — drinks made with eggs and cream.
Eventually, the “egg cream” came to be known as the misnamed drink without eggs and cream and “egg drinks” were phased out, left mostly in co*cktail bars.
How do you serve a New York Egg Cream?
Serve a New York Egg Cream cold. Like, as soon as you make it, serve it. Don’t let it sit while you’re making more for other people. The foam will deflate (quickly) and you won’t get the full egg cream flavor.
Skip the straw. If you use a straw, you’ll end up drinking the chocolate milk portion first and miss out on the fizzy foam. Gulp it all at once.
So yes, lots of rules for this traditional New York drink. But it’s worth it.
New York Egg Cream vs. Manhattan Egg Cream
Remember before when I mentioned the order of the drink? Let’s talk about that now.
For purists, the order is: milk, seltzer, syrup.
For others, the order is: syrup, milk, seltzer.
The way the purists make it, you end up with that pretty white foam that will earn you some “oohs” and “ahhs.” It’s also the way they make it in Brooklyn, where my mom and the egg cream were born.
If you make it the way the others make it, you won’t end up with a white foam. The foam will be brown-ish, like the color of dirty snow, a couple days after the snow has been plowed in New York.
The egg cream will still taste good, it just won’t look as pretty.
And if you make it with vanilla syrup instead of chocolate syrup, then you’re gonna have to call that a Manhattan Egg Cream.
Yes. I’m serious.
Yield: 1 Serving
Egg Creams are such a classic New York drink -- with no egg or cream!
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup whole milk
- 2/3 cup seltzer water
- 2 tablespoons chocolate syrup
Instructions
- Pour the milk in the bottom of the glass. The milk should be about an inch high.
- Pour the seltzer water into the center of the glass, stopping about a half inch from the top.
- Vigorously stir the drink until a beautiful foam forms on the top. The foam will expand.
- Pour the chocolate syrup on to a spoon and very gently put the spoon in the bottom of the glass. Then, stir gently to stir the chocolate syrup into the bottom of the drink. Avoid getting it into the foam.
Nutrition Information
Yield
1Serving Size
1
Amount Per ServingCalories 154Total Fat 3gSaturated Fat 2gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 1gCholesterol 8mgSodium 63mgCarbohydrates 28gFiber 1gSugar 23gProtein 3g
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