Salted Caramel Egg Cream!

I have a good life.  My kids rock, they put a smile on my face almost every second of the day.  I have a nice house, although it’s going to be better soon.  I have a beautiful wife, who has made great sacrifices to stay home and raise our kids.  I have a good job and I’m paid well.  It’s great, truly.  But something has been missing, and I wasn’t even aware;  enter The Egg Cream.

I’d never been aware that such a thing existed until my brother was going on about them the other day.  An egg cream is an old time soda shoppe concoction that contains neither eggs nor cream.  But is rather seltzer and a syrup made with whole milk.  My kids drink whole milk, Sarah got a SodaStream for Christmas so we have seltzer.  I need to make this.

Sarah had checked out a book from the library called Soda Making by Andreew Schloss, and it so happened to have a few recipes for egg creams… I was drawn, as if by some ethereal force, to the Salted Caramel Egg Cream.  I made the syrup and stuck it outside to cool (it was -3°C), waited, waited, ugh, too much waiting.  Mixed up the Egg Cream concoction; what was in the glass was fizzy liquid caramel.  Damn good.  Really, damn good.  I never knew what I was missing, but I’ve filled the egg cream shaped void that I didn’t know I had.

 Syrup.

My photo skills do not do this justice.

Here’s the recipe so your life can be more complete as well:

*Caramel Syrup

- 1/2 cup sugar

- 1/4 cup water

- 1 cup milk 

- 1/4 teaspoon fleur de sel

Method:

Combine sugar and water in saucepan.  

Cook over medium-high heat until mixture turns pale amber.

While sugar is caramelizing, heat milk to a simmer in another saucepan or in microwave.

When sugar mixture is pale amber, stir in the milk.  (stand back, as the mixture will spit and spatter, sugar will immediately crystalize and milk will bubble and steam)  

Once foaming subsides, stir until caramel becomes smooth again.  

Remove from heat and stir in fleur de sel.

*will keep in fridge for up to 2 days (will thicken), must be warmed until liquid before using to make soda.

To Mix with Seltzer:

- 1/2 cup caramel syrup

- 1 cup seltzer

- 1/2 cup crushed ice (optional)

LIFE CHANGING!!