3 Cafe-Style Desserts To Make At Home In 15 Minutes Including OTT Freakshake And French Toast

15-minute cafe-style desserts

Dining in is the new dining out, what more with the ever-fluctuating restrictions on eating out. Cut through all that fuss and headache by making your own 15-minute cafe-style desserts at home. Plus, it costs a lot less when you DIY at home. Our recipes are grown-up, zhnged-up spins on the nostalgic Ovaltine drinks of our childhoods, made with Wall’s Ovaltine Crunchy Pop Ice Cream, so strap on your apron and give them a try!

1. OTT Freakshake

Impress your family and friends with our easy, over-the-top milkshake. It goes perfectly with an all-American diner-themed meal, complete with burgers, fries, and the works. End the meal with this shake, which is full of chocolatey notes from Wall’s Ovaltine Crunchy Pop Ice Cream, and surprise them with the savoury, crispy nibbles within!

The Wall’s Ovaltine Crunchy Pop Ice Cream has a crunchy chocolate shell, infused with Ovaltine white malt and crunchy malt flakes with swirls of chocolate sauce within. To amp up the chocolatey, malty flavour, we added cocoa powder, and crumbled cookies to give the shake more body.

Here’s a pro tip: coarsely crumble the cookies for some crunch and textural contrast in the shake!

For a richer and more indulgent milkshake, try blending it with heavy cream.

The mixture will be slightly thick, so you might have to occasionally give the mixture a stir to help you along.

The sky’s the limit when it comes to the toppings of your freakshake, so go crazy! We’ve added some crispy bacon to ours, and rimmed the glass with crunchy peanut butter, to lend some savouriness to the drink.

Yield: 1 glass
Cooking time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

40ml full cream milk, or heavy cream
5 Wall’s Ovaltine Crunchy Pop Ice Cream, softened
3 tbsp cocoa powder
9 cookies, crushed
Whipped cream
4 tbsp crunchy peanut butter (optional)
2 rashers of streaky bacon (optional)
1 sachet Ovaltine crunchy pop malt flakes (optional)

Directions:

Place your glass in the freezer.
Lay bacon, spaced out, on a baking rack above a baking tray. Pop into the air fryer at 200⁰C for 13 minutes.
Add Wall’s Ovaltine Crunchy Pop Ice Cream, cocoa powder, a generous handful of crumbled cookies, and milk or cream to a blender. Starting at the lowest speed, blend till smooth. If it’s a warm day, keep this in the freezer while you prepare your glass.
Spread crunchy peanut butter around the rim of the glass, and roll in biscuit crumbs.
Pour the milkshake into your glass, and top it with a mountain of whipped cream. Garnish with bacon crisps, or your choice of toppings.

2. Ovaltine Affogato

Ovaltine, and affogato─two well-loved, traditional favourites─come together perfectly in this treat. As with the classic affogato, this rendition balances the bitter notes of espresso, or kopi-O gao, with the chocolatey, malty sweetness of Wall’s Ovaltine Crunchy Pop Ice Cream.

We start by separating the ice cream from its chocolate shell, and cubing the ice cream. It’s advisable to make sure your ice cream is frozen solid at this point, to facilitate the removal of the chocolate shell.

We also prepared a chocolate sauce by melting the chocolate shell in cream, and zhnging it up with Ovaltine Chocolate Powder for an extra kick.

This rich, Ovaltine-laced chocolate sauce, coupled with the Wall’s Ovaltine Crunchy Pop Ice Cream when it melts into the hot coffee, makes for an almost mocha-like cuppa.

When you’re ready to serve, get your ice cream cubes from the freezer, and stack ‘em up in the glass as high as you can go.

Of course, the show-stopping moment of this creation is when you pour your hot coffee over the cold ice cream, and watch it flow down your ice cream mountain. Stir, and enjoy!

Yield: 2 glasses
Cooking time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

4 tbsp Ovaltine Chocolate powder
¼ cup cream
2 shots of espresso, or 60ml of kopi-O gao
3 Wall’s Ovaltine Crunchy Pop Ice Cream, chocolate shell separated, cubed
Ovaltine crunchy pop malt flakes (optional)

Directions:

In a saucepan, add heavy cream, the chocolate shell of the Wall’s Ovaltine Crunchy Pop Ice Cream, and Ovaltine chocolate powder, stirring on low heat till smooth and thickened. Let cool, and pour just enough to cover the bottom of the glass.
Stack cubes of Wall’s Ovaltine Crunchy Pop Ice Cream in the glass.
Pour over a shot of hot espresso, then garnish with Ovaltine crunchy pop malt flakes, if using.

3. Ovaltine French Toast

My fondest memories of French toast are cha chaan teng-style ones in Hong Kong, deep-fried to golden, eggy perfection, sandwiched with peanut butter, and paired with a mug of “熱華” (rè huá / jit6 waa4), or hot Ovaltine, on the side. This recipe brings the two together into a cohesive, cafe-worthy dessert, dressed with fresh cut fruits, and mint leaves for that IG-worthy photo.

I’ve gone with crunchy peanut butter for an added crunch in the French toast, but feel free to go with creamy if that’s your preference. If you’re Team Sweet, you can consider swapping this out for a chocolate spread too.

As with the previous recipe, separate the chocolate shell from the Wall’s Ovaltine Crunchy Pop Ice Cream. The ice cream will be melted into the custard for the French toast, while the chocolate shell will once again go into the chocolate sauce.

To enhance the flavours of the ice cream, we added a dash of cinnamon, and nutmeg, both of which contribute to the familiar taste of classic French toast.

Thoroughly soak your bread in the well-mixed custard. Don’t be alarmed by the colour─it’s from the chocolate swirls in the ice cream. If you prefer your bread to be less soft and soggy, reduce the soaking time here.

On low heat, pan fry the French toast in melted butter and oil. This pairing reduces the occurrence of blackened, burnt butter in your pan.

This step of sprinkling sugar, and re-frying, gets you that slightly crusty, caramelised exterior that brings out the malt flavours of Ovaltine in the French toast.

Yield: 1 serving
Cooking time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

Chocolate sauce:

4 tbsp cocoa powder
¼ cup cream
Chocolate shell of Wall’s Ovaltine Crunchy Pop Ice Cream

French toast:

2 slices of thick cut bread
Peanut butter
2 Wall’s Ovaltine Crunchy Pop Ice Cream, chocolate shell separated, and ice cream melted
3 egg yolks
1 tsp cinnamon powder (optional)
Pinch of nutmeg (optional)
¼ cup cream
¼ tsp salt
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp oil
4 + 1 tbsp sugar
½ cup blueberries and strawberries (optional)
2 cookies, crushed (optional)
1 sachet Ovaltine crunchy pop malt flakes (optional)

Directions:

To make chocolate sauce, cook cocoa powder with the chocolate shell of Wall’s Ovaltine Crunchy Pop Ice Cream on low heat in a saucepan till thick and smooth, then set aside.
In a shallow bowl, beat together the egg yolks, melted ice cream, 4 tbsp sugar, cream, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon to make the custard mix.
Spread peanut butter generously to make a thick sandwich. Dip the sandwich in the custard mix, and let sit on each side for 1 minute, or soaked thoroughly.
Heat pan with butter and oil, and fry French toast for 3 to 5 minutes. Flip, sprinkle ½ tbsp sugar or more, and flip it back over, adding more butter and oil if necessary. Repeat, frying each sugared side for 2 minutes.
Plate with chocolate sauce, and toppings as desired.

Cafe-style desserts with Wall’s Ovaltine Crunchy Pop Ice Cream

With these three recipes under your belt, impress your family, friends, or significant other, bringing their palates on a trip down the Ovaltine memory lane. Wall’s Ovaltine Crunchy Pop Ice Cream is chocolatey, malty, and absolutely indulgent, whether on a hot afternoon or an after-dinner snack as you watch TV.

Wall’s Ovaltine Crunchy Pop Ice Cream is now sold at all leading supermarkets, hypermarkets, and convenience stores islandwide. They come in boxes of four, retailing at $9.50, or $2.50 for individual sticks!