The Only 3 Ingredients Needed For A Classic Egg Cream

There are many ways to cool down in the heat, but one of the best — and one New Yorkers have long enjoyed — is a classic chocolate or vanilla egg cream. The bubbly concoction with the misleading name is lighter than a milkshake, different than a malt, and was once such a huge part of growing up in Brooklyn that singer Lou Reed once wrote a song about them, which goes: "When I was a young man, no bigger than this. A chocolate egg cream was not to be missed. Some U-Bet's Chocolate Syrup, seltzer water mixed with milk. You stir it up into a heady fro, tasted just like silk."

That's right — a classic egg cream doesn't contain any eggs or cream. It's got just the three ingredients that Reed name checks in his 1996 record "Set The Twilight Reeling": chocolate or vanilla syrup, seltzer, and milk. While it's not hard to stir up the bubbly delicacy that's been a staple at soda fountains and diners for more than a century, there's a little more to it than just mixing the three ingredients in a glass.

When a recipe has only a few ingredients, you should always dig a little deeper to figure out what is special about those particular choices. In the case of chocolate egg creams, any Brooklynite will tell you that there's no other choice than Fox's U-Bet brand syrups. The sweet stuff is made in Brooklyn, for starters, but it also has a particular flavor profile that can't be duplicated thanks to the company's 100-plus-year-old recipes that are made with invert sugar, water, alkalized Dutch cocoa powder, regular cocoa powder, and never any high fructose corn syrup. The chocolate syrup was created by founder Herman Fox and first went into production in 1900; the famed drink made with his chocolaty elixir started appearing at New York City lunch counters and soda shops not long after.

Can you use another brand of syrup? Yes, of course, but you won't get that true New York-style egg cream flavor. There's almost no excuse to not use Fox's, either, since you can order a bottle of the syrup for less than $10 from Amazon or parent company Gold's (which is a Brooklyn-founded food manufacturer which specializes in prepared horseradish — in case you want some for Bloody Marys while you're online).

As for the other ingredients in an egg cream, when it comes to seltzer the key is to make sure you use an unflavored variety that has a lot of carbonation. Many of the places where you can get an egg cream in Brooklyn use soda fountain machines of some kind. If you don't have a seltzer maker, you can also use a canned or bottled variety, just pour it over the back of a metal spoon to create more bubbles and achieve more height in your drink. Make sure that whatever variety you use, that it is unflavored.

For milk, the original recipe was created long before people were drinking low-fat milks, according to The Atlantic. So if you want to treat yourself to a true classic, stick to whole milk here. That said, if you have a dairy allergy or are lactose intolerant, there's no rule that says you can't sub in your favorite unflavored milk alternative.

Once you have all your ingredients on hand, you can experiment with ratios to find what you like, but a pretty good rule of thumb recipe is around two or three tablespoons of syrup, half a cup of milk, and a cup of seltzer. Keep your seltzer and milk cold before mixing, and combine everything in a glass, stir it up so it's nice and frothy with a long cocktail or iced tea spoon, and serve.