Egg Cream: Chocolate Syrup, Milk and Seltzer
Reader ratingsChocolate syrup, cold milk and seltzer stirred to a white head, plus the 1897 egg cream that really did have egg yolks and cream in it, topped with nutmeg.
- Recipe makes
- 1 New York egg cream; the 1897 syrup makes about 2 1/4 cups, enough for 12 glasses
- Prep
- Total
The New York egg cream takes a minute. The 1897 syrup takes about 10 minutes plus 30 minutes for its sugar syrup to cool.
A New York egg cream in a straight-sided soda glass, with a seltzer siphon and a long spoon.
The story behind the recipe
The egg cream poured in New York today has no egg and no cream: it is chocolate syrup, cold milk and seltzer, stirred until a white head rises. A Chicago manual of 1897 printed an egg cream that had both, and the name is on a Missouri fountain’s list four years before that.
Sedalia, 1893
On June 8, 1893, Sicher’s Cafe in Sedalia, Missouri, ran a notice on the front page of the Sedalia Evening Democrat headed “Delicacies of the Season.” Among the phosphates and cream sodas it listed egg cream, egg cream chocolate and egg cream coffee. The notice gives no recipe and no price for them.
A recipe followed four years later in A. Emil Hiss’s Standard Manual of Soda and Other Beverages (Chicago, 1897): a syrup of cream, yolks, sugar and vanilla, drawn with soda water into a large glass, with nutmeg grated over the foam. It sits on the page among a run of egg drinks: egg chocolate, egg coffee, egg flips. The fountain also shook whole eggs into sours such as the Lemon Egg Phosphate. Hiss set down its rules for hot drinks too; they are in What Did Soda Fountains Sell in Winter? The 1897 glass on this page follows him, with pasteurized yolks.
Read more about this recipe
Why is there no egg in an egg cream?
When the egg and cream left, and why the New York glass of chocolate syrup, milk and seltzer kept the name, is not recorded. That gap has filled with stories, and none of them is documented. The best known credits Louis Auster, who kept a candy store in Brooklyn, with inventing the drink; the dates given run from the 1880s to the 1900s, and his son Stanley said the origin of the name was lost. Another derives “egg” from the Yiddish echt, genuine. A third traces it to chocolat et crème and the Yiddish actor Boris Thomashefsky. All three are family tradition or folk etymology, told decades later. It is the one drink in Forgotten Drinks Worth Making Again that never quite went away.
Delicacies of the Season. Orange and mint phosphate, ice cream soda, egg cream, sherbert, egg cream chocolate, egg cream coffee, crushed strawberries, pineapple, orange, raspberry and apricot cream soda, all flavors in plain soda; ice cream, ices and fruit ice cream.
Recipe makes: 1 New York egg cream; the 1897 syrup makes about 2 1/4 cups, enough for 12 glasses
Ingredients
For 1 New York egg cream; the 1897 syrup makes about 2 1/4 cups, enough for 12 glasses. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for 1 New York egg cream; the 1897 syrup makes about 2 1/4 cups, enough for 12 glasses.
New York egg cream (modern), per glass
- Chocolate syrup2 tbsp
- Whole milk, very cold1/4 cup
- Seltzer, very cold3/4 cup
Egg cream syrup
- Sugar1 2/3 cups
- Water2/3 cup
- Heavy cream1/2 cup
- Pasteurized egg yolks4
- Vanilla extract1 tsp
1897 egg cream, per glass
- Egg cream syrup3 tbsp
- Soda water, very cold1 cup
- Grated nutmeg, to finish
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 2 tbsp chocolate syrup
- 1/4 cup whole milk, very cold
- 3/4 cup seltzer, very cold
- 1 2/3 cups sugar
- 2/3 cup water
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 4 pasteurized egg yolks
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 tbsp egg cream syrup
- 1 cup soda water, very cold
- grated nutmeg, to finish
Equipment
Tall glass
Long spoon
Small saucepan
Bowl
Whisk
Clean glass jar with a lid
Large tumbler, about 12 fl oz
Nutmeg grater
Instructions
New York egg cream (modern)
Pour the chocolate syrup into a tall glass and add the cold whole milk.
Pour in the seltzer in a fast stream, aiming at the back of the glass, so it foams up into a white head.
Stir hard at the bottom of the glass with a long spoon, without lifting the spoon through the foam, until the syrup has blended in. Serve at once.
Egg cream, 1897
For the syrup, put the sugar and water in a small saucepan and stir over low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Take it off the heat and leave until completely cold, about 30 minutes.
In a bowl, whisk the heavy cream with the pasteurized egg yolks until perfectly smooth. Whisk in the cold sugar syrup and the vanilla extract, pour into a clean jar, close it and refrigerate.
For each glass, stir the syrup, then put the egg cream syrup in a tall tumbler. Add the very cold soda water with force, so it foams, and stir. The liquid fills the glass about four-fifths of the way, which leaves room for the head.
Grate a little nutmeg over the foam and serve at once.
Nutrition
150calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- 1 New York egg cream; the 1897 syrup makes about 2 1/4 cups, enough for 12 glasses
Estimated from USDA FoodData Central values for chocolate syrup and whole milk, for one New York egg cream.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
The New York egg cream is for one glass. Scale the 1897 syrup ingredients together; its per-glass amounts are for one drink.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the batch.
Hiss’s syrup uses raw yolks, so use pasteurized eggs or pasteurized liquid yolk: the US Food and Drug Administration advises pasteurized eggs for any dish where the egg stays raw. Keep the syrup at 40°F (4°C) or below and use it within 2 days; Hiss gives no limit, and that one is our cautious choice.
His “Syrup” is the fountain’s plain sugar syrup; this one is about two parts sugar to one of water by weight. He says only to serve it the way a plain soda syrup is served, so the 3 tbsp per glass is our estimate: fountains of the 1890s drew about an ounce of ordinary syrup per glass, and this one is richer.
For the 1893 menu’s “egg cream chocolate,” which has no surviving recipe, adding 1 tbsp chocolate syrup to the 1897 glass is our reconstruction.
For the New York version, use seltzer from a siphon or a freshly opened bottle, and any chocolate syrup you like.
Storage
The New York egg cream is made to order. Keep the 1897 egg cream syrup in a closed jar in the fridge and use it within 2 days.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; glassware, ice and timings need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
A. Emil Hiss, The Standard Manual of Soda and Other Beverages (Chicago: G. P. Engelhard, 1897), p. 112; Sedalia Evening Democrat (Sedalia, Missouri), June 8, 1893, p. 1. The New York version is modern.
Recipe details
- Drink
- Alcohol-free
- Drink family
- Sodas & Soft Drinks
- Region
- American
- Era
- 19th century
- Source decade
- 1890s
- Difficulty
- Easy