Pre-made chocolate milk vs. mixing it yourself (split from Ontario board)

[Flexitarian]

Maybe I am missing something but I drink 10 oz of chocolate milk right after my weight training workout 3x/week and I took one look at the cost of natrel (or others) pre-made chocolate milk even on sale and found that mixing Camiino instant chocolate powder from The Big Carrot or Mountain Equipment Co-Op with organic milk was way cheaper than buying it pre-made.

Is it the convenience of getting it pre-mixed at Fortino's et al that is worth the extra cost? Takes me 2 seconds to mix.

[eclecticsynergy]

Maybe it's just me but I believe the flavor is better when it's freshly mixed. Did an experiment a few years ago where I mixed half a glass the night before and compared it side by side with freshly mixed the next day. There was a definite difference.

Now, back then I was using the powder that I'd loved since childhood, not syrup, and that may have had something to do with it- I have not repeated the experiment since I switched to syrup. But at the time it was quite noticeable.

[Emme]

I keep a homemade chocolate syrup on hand for chocolate milk... Keeps for months and months in the fridge and mixes into milk much more readily that powder. Just my 10 cents. I would *never* buy pre-made chocolate milk, but then again, that's coming from the woman who also says with too many things, "why would we buy it, we can make it!!"

[chowfox]

Emme, this is just what I'm looking for! Would you be willing to divulge your recipe? I'm so tired of corn-syrup-based products...

[Emme]

Sure no problem!

½ cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder (not sure why i don't have this in grams in my file..)
400 g Sugar
1 cup Water
⅛ tsp. Salt
1 tsp. Vanilla Extract

Combine everything except the vanilla in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, and boil for 3 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla and let cool to room temperature. Store in the fridge.

[Cooking42]

This looks great, thanks for sharing.

[Emme]

my pleasure.

[magic]

Not a bad idea. Will try.

A greener option too, which I definitely like.

Still like buying cartons the odd time when cheap and will continue to do so, but yeah, not a bad idea at all.

[Flexitarian]

The other thing is I never have chocolate milk going bad and always have it available as long as I have white milk in the fridge and the chocolate powder.

[foodyDudey]

Why use that chocolate powder? I melt SOMA 64% Peruvian chocolate ($38 /kg) into milk to make my chocolate milk. It takes slightly longer but it tastes great.

[magic]

Yup, these are all great ideas. Sometimes though, you simply want what you grew up with :) Especially when on a rare sale!

But I will start being more open to good ideas like these.

[Flexitarian]

Why not use it? Your melted chocolate in milk is both very inconvenient and, more importantly, would not give me the right combination of carbohydrates and protein that I need to ingest right after my workout. And, my concoction is absolutely delicious, probably even more so than yours.

Now these posts are going to get booted since we are so off topic!

[foodyDudey]

Since you were mentioning other store-bought options, it appeared all you wanted was a cheaper source for chocolate milk. I doubt my method is going to be significantly less in carbs and protein. Why would you think that? It's just milk and chocolate. And I can make two cups of it in less than 5 minutes, which is not a lot of time.