Malted Milk Chocolate Ice Cream

This summer's movies have been good to geeky ol' me. I've swooned over the magnetic, take-no-prisoners Michael Fassbender and watched trash-talking South London teens hilariously take down a lo-fi alien invasion ("This is too much madness to explain in one text!"). I've even been introduced to Scandinavian docu-horror, a genre as likable as it is unlikely. On any given weekend, you could find me cooling off in the movie theater with a bucket of popcorn and a fast-beating heart.

But with autumn just around the corner, we're coming on the end of summer movie season, which means all this brain candy will have to make way for more Serious Movies—or worse, Family Movies. Stuff about feelings and people and meaningful commentaries about the way we live. All of which I frankly don't have time or patience for. If your flick doesn't involve the hero's undead neighbor trying to make lunch out of his intestines, you're probably not getting my $12. So when the weather turns cold I'll be on the couch, watching Dawn of the Dead and knocking back malted milk balls. Or more likely, malted milk chocolate ice cream.

Really, the only thing not to love about going to the movies (okay, besides expensive tickets, sticky floors, and getting your seat kicked by punk kids) is the lack of ice cream, as worthy a movie snack as popcorn itself. At home it's a different story. Rarely does a movie premiere Chez Falkowitz without a bowl of ice cream the size of your head.

Until I work out buttered popcorn ice cream (just a matter of time, folks), I'm calling this the perfect movie ice cream flavor. Unless you're a malt maniac (hi, Ed!), you probably only eat malted milk balls in movie theaters. But they're candy to love: a rich malty flavor just complicated enough in a supremely chompable shell. I'm pleased to report they make the transition to ice cream exceedingly well, chomps and all.

To give my milk chocolate ice cream the malty kick it needed, I dug back to another nostalgic classic: Ovaltine. You may not feel like buying a whole canister just to make one batch of ice cream, but after a scoop of this stuff I don't think you'll have trouble with a repeat batch. Or just bring your leftovers to my place. I'll be on the comfy couch with big puffy pillows and the aforementioned bowls the size of my head, watching the planet get destroyed and rescued again on the small screen. There's room to share.