Here we are back with Babish to make the Ned Flanders hot cocoa from The Simpsons movie. This is the same cocoa that made Bart Simpson mutter “Oh my God” it was so good. You know Bart, he doesn’t offer comments all that often and if he does it usually means that he’s being sarcastic in some way. All the same however this cocoa looks quite decadent and as though it might give a person a cavity just by looking at it for too long. You’ve got to give it to Ned Flanders, he knows how to make a good cup of cocoa that you can sink your teeth into.
First there’s the decision over whether to use canned milk, fresh milk, heavy cream, or even goat’s milk. Babish tends to stick with regular milk thankfully. He then heats it to about 190 degrees before adding Girardelli cocoa powder, dark chocolate, and sugar to add in the actual sweetness. He then puts in some kosher salt, which I guess makes sense. Then he adds cinnamon and a teaspoon of instant coffee. You might think that some of these ingredients would counteract in the taste department with others such as the salt with the sugar and even the coffee which might give a much different flavor than a hot chocolate lover might want. Instead the flavors blend quite nicely with each other as they’re being mixed in.
After that comes the Mt. Flanders-sized dollop of canned whip cream followed by some chocolate shavings and then a whole graham cracker. The tricky part about this is that adding a smear of whipped cream on top of the graham cracker only seems to work in the cartoon so you’ll want to attach your marshmallow to the cracker before sinking it into the whipped cream. From that point on you can toast or burn the marshmallow, not everyone likes it crispy like Babish after all, to your heart’s desire. After that it’s time to dig in and enjoy.
It’s interesting watching some of these TV recipes come to life and what kind of tricks and ingredients that Babish and even others use in making them a reality. I wonder if there will ever be a person brave enough to try something along the lines of a “Flaming Homer”, the alcoholic drink that Mo stole from Homer one episode when he was looking to make something new to class up his bar. That might seem a little risque if someone decided to use actual cough syrup as was used in the cartoon, but I get the feeling that with all the alcohol available on the market and the seemingly infinite number of mixers that can be used that someone would be able to finally replicate it without any controversial methods.
After all if someone’s going to make a dish or drink on a show you know someone in real life is going to want to try it out just to say they had. Of course not all of them need to be tried, sometimes for the sake of a person’s taste buds.
Follow Us
