Vegan Momofuku-inspired chocolate syrup

Mmmkay. So I hope you didn’t get too used to that bomb-ass photography in last post (yes I have no shame and yes I will label certain samples of my own photography as “bomb-ass”—get used to it) because we are back to poorly lit, half-heartedly styled slivers of reality that barely portray what it is that I am trying to tell you how to make in each post. Yay! Cool!

I have exactly two pictures of this recipe. Here’s the other one:

And now, the weather.

Okay. Glad we got that over with.

Photography has always been a tender subject on this here blog (obligatory similes: as tender as an undercooked cinnamon roll, barren like a baby’s bottom without its robe of icing; as tender as a sliver of silken tofu simmered in a pot of carrot stock for three hours), much as writing has been (as in: the quality, readability, degree of sanity, etc. of the writing herein). The most commented-on post of all time features my first ventures into Photoshopland, and oh how accurate my predictions proved to be.

Lots of Photoshopped jimmie-soothing has been going on since that fateful post. 

But I don’t want to talk about myself.

Wait. I lied. I do want to talk about myself (that is a constant), but today, I want to talk about other people’s photography. Specifically, other people’s photography on Instagram.

Having started school, the idea that most teenagers have smartphones and that most of them have a habit of snapping selfies and other such photos for the sake of Instagram has been forced back into my narrow circle of awareness. Which is slightly disturbing, when it happens all at once like this. People will hold up their phones in the middle of the hallway and I will just side-eye them like 

source

like what are you doing? And then I will see the reverse camera screen going and be like “Ohhhhh, you’re taking a SEW-FEE, well let me just get out of your way” and move along.

It takes a bit to get used to. At first, I wondered why people had to take so many pictures of themselves or others. Does their appearance really change that drastically? Is it so necessary to show who they are with and what they are doing at a particular moment in time to the entire world?

But then I stopped questioning it and just accepted that this, this Instagramming, Facebooking, whatever trend was part of life in the internet generation. Ya know, that generation which provides graying baby boomers with more than enough “kids these days” fodder to handle.

Supposedly, we’re all narcissists who seek approval through carefully curated highlight reels and massive follower accounts, with no sense of privacy or dignity or any of those noble traits sustained by the generations of yore. And whatever. That’s just the way it is, if you believe that. It’s not only the internet generation, but the Photoshop generation, the Autotune generation, where every piece of media has been modified to show absolute “perfection”, whatever that ideal may mean for you. You can’t blame us for trying to contort our own digital presences to mimic the perfection you see onscreen, in magazines, everywhere. I’d wager you’ve seen this video (or a variant) before: 

Just another day in the tech part of the fashion industry, I guess.

Knowing just how perfect our perceptions of humanity are from the media we experience, it is understandable that “kids these days” are so intent on taking their sew-fees and putting out their best sides, their best looks. We want to mimic that perfection.

In comparison to the manipulations you see in magazines and on television, Instagram doesn’t seem so bad. I get it, kids. I get your sew-fees.

*steps aside* *courteously allows you to snap a photo before English class* *deems it unnecessary to photobomb for another day...*

Okay June, let's get to the point. source

And so, in defiance of this oppressive cultural norm, I am presenting you with a painfully imperfect specimen of chocolate syrup. Courtesy of Momofuku Milk Bar.

As described in the cookbook, Christina Tosi stumbled upon this formula nearly by accident, after stirring gobs of glucose into a basic chocolate sauce and letting it sit overnight, only to find that, by golly, it tasted exactly like that magical Hershey’s stuff of our childhoods! I have to agree after having made this recipe several times. There is no better chocolate syrup recipe out there.

Do note that because I am not one to have glucose on hand, I substituted corn syrup. If you do have glucose (in which case might I ask how you have such a thing?), feel free to substitute a quarter cup of the stuff in place of the corn syrup, which will give you a more authentic and better-textured syrup.

Here’s the recipe.

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Vegan Momofuku-inspired chocolate syrup

Adapted from Momofuku Milk Bar cookbook

Ingredients

30 grams ● 72% nondairy chocolate, chopped ● 1 ounce

9 grams ● cocoa powder ● 2 tablespoons

0.5 gram ● kosher salt ● 1/8 teaspoon

35 grams ● corn syrup ● 2 tablespoons

25 grams ● granulated sugar ● 2 tablespoons

55 grams ● coconut cream (the solidified top of a can of coconut milk with the highest fat content) ● 

¼ cup

Instructions

Combine chocolate, cocoa powder, and salt in a medium bowl. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, mix corn syrup, sugar, and cream and bring to a boil over high heat. The moment it boils, pour into the bowl with the cocoa powder mixture and let sit for a full minute.

Very slowly begin to whisk the mixture. Increase the vigor of your whisking every 30 seconds until the mixture is glossy and silky smooth. This can take from 2 to 4 minutes, depending on your speed and strength. Let cool completely before using.

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Nevermind, just June showing you the same photo twice.

Like so many other things in life, this post is—yeah um it is part of a larger picture. You may have guessed. June never shows you such a simple recipe in isolation...there is always something else to make, something else to drench in sugary goodness.

But don’t mind me. There’s nothing like straight up chocolate sauce with a spoon.