In the Kitchen: Hot Spiced Milk (1948)

Dear Constant Reader,

There’s a FB group I belong to where one person has been sharing daily menus from The Modern Family Cook Book by Meta Givens (1948) for the past couple of years. I even got my own copy of the book to check out the recipes. Then last year I jumped into the game to share Fannie Farmer menus and it’s been fun to compare the two generations of cooking. Some of Meta’s recipes are off-putting — a lot of vegetables covered with white or cheese sauce, a lack of seasoning, plenty of organ meats — but some grabbed my fancy and I’ve given them a whirl.

One of the recipes I tried was Hot Spiced Milk. It was so good that I’ve made it a few times. My cozy winter drink of choice is hot chocolate, so it’s saying something that I like this, sans any chocolate.

I recently mentioned it during a livestream with Patrons of Christine McConnell. If you were one of the folks who requested the recipe, here it is!

You need
IMG_0626butter, coconut, milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, and honey

Hot Spiced Milk
1/4 cup shredded coconut
1 tablespoon butter
4 cups milk
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2 tablespoons honey

Melt the butter and brown the coconut in it. Then add all the other ingredients and heat until scalding (180°F). Strain out the coconut and serve. If you want to leave the coconut in, chop finely before browning.

Serves 4.

This works best with whole milk, but there no reason not to use a plant-based milk, if that’s your preference.

I usually use unsweetened coconut, but sweetened coconut will probably brown better. It will also make the drink sweeter, so you might want to adjust the honey.

I suppose you could toast the coconut without any butter, but you’d loose that little bit of extra richness.

It’s lovely on a winter evening with some cookies!

M2These writings and other creative projects are supported by my 17 Patrons. Thank you so much! To become a Patron, go to my Patreon page. Or you can just tip me if you liked this.