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Malted Milk Coffee, Hot
Two teaspoonfuls malted milk, 2 teaspoonfuls American Condensed Coffee, 7 ounces hot water. Prepare as with hot malted milk; sweeten to taste; top with whipped cream.
A soda-fountain drink built from two shelf products the dispenser kept at hand: malted milk powder and a bottled coffee concentrate. Both still exist in some form, and the drink comes together in a minute.
- The hinge: paste it firstMalted milk powder lumps badly when hot water hits it dry. Work the powder and the coffee concentrate into a smooth paste with a spoonful or two of the water, then add the rest hot and whisk or shake.
- 7 ounces hot waterJust under a cup; 7 fl oz is roughly 207 ml. Water hot but not boiling keeps the malt from scorching.
- American Condensed CoffeeA bottled liquid coffee extract sold to fountains, of a kind that may or may not have been sweetened. The nearest current equivalents are coffee syrup or a sweetened coffee concentrate; unsweetened cold-brew concentrate or a heaping teaspoon of instant coffee also works, with sugar added separately.
- Malted milkHorlick's-style malted milk powder, containing milk solids as well as malted barley and wheat — that is what makes this drink milky without any milk being listed. Plain malt extract powder is not a substitute.
- "Prepare as with hot malted milk"The book is cross-referring to its own method for hot malted milk: paste the powder, add the hot water, then mix well.
- Sweeten to tasteIf the coffee concentrate is already sweetened, taste before adding anything. Start at a teaspoon of sugar for the cup if it is not.
- YieldOne cup, one serving, topped with whipped cream.
Malted milk began as an infant and invalid food in the 1880s — a dried blend of malted grain and milk, promoted as digestible nourishment — and moved to the soda fountain when dispensers found it thickened and enriched anything they stirred it into. By the time books like this one were codifying fountain practice in the early twentieth century, the malt bin sat beside the syrup pumps and the same powder served cold malted milks and cups like this one. Condensed coffee was the other half of the equation: bottled coffee extract let a soda clerk produce a hot coffee drink in the same motions he used for everything else. The result is a period version of a sweet instant mocha, and a reminder that the fountain sold itself as much on wholesomeness as on indulgence.