The other day I was enjoying a double Swiss cheese burger with sautéed mushroom and onions at one of my favorite hamburger joints. It was delicious. The meat patties were thick and juicy and the Swiss cheese was all melted and oozing down the sides of the burger. The onions and mushrooms made it difficult to keep the whole thing together while I was eating it. The freshly cut and fried French fries were a nice addition. I had a large chocolate milkshake to wash everything down.
I watched the young teenage girl make the milkshake while I was waiting for my meal. She took a large stainless steel cylinder and filled it with chocolate ice cream and added some milk and then mixed it all up. That was it. No specially flavored fluid for shakes, no chocolate syrup or anything, just ice cream and milk.
Do you know what a milk shake tastes like with just ice cream and milk? It taste like watered down ice cream.
Now I’m no expert on milkshakes but I have made a few and when I make them I always compensate for the watering down effect of the milk by adding something to boost the flavor back up to an acceptable level.
For example, occasionally I stop by one of those smorgasbord type buffet restaurants where they serve just about everything. Man I love a good buffet. For some reason the wife likes to sit down and have a nice little meal at a regular type restaurant, where they ration out everything, to make sure you’re not getting too much, like it’s any of their business anyway. But at the buffet you can just grab a plate and fill it to overflowing and then do it again. Nobody cares and nobody is keeping track. Just load up and go and then load up again.
Well anyway at those wonderful buffet type restaurants they often serve milk. The finer ones will have chocolate milk as well. Once I’ve loaded up my first plate of goodies I go back and grab two glasses and promptly fill each of them about 2/3 full with chocolate milk. Then I head over to the ice cream dispenser and fill them almost all the way to the top with chocolate ice cream. Then I side step to the topping table which is usually right next to the ice cream dispenser, where I add a couple of generous squirts of chocolate syrup. Then I go back to my seat. With several deft stirs of the spoon the chocolate milk shake is ready. I’ll tell you what, that is one good milk shake.
You can do the same thing at home. Every now and then the kids will request a milkshake for a family treat. Of course I oblige them. I grab a couple of half gallons of ice cream and whatever else I need and go to work.
Over the years I have found that the easiest way to make a large batch of milk shakes is to use a large bowl and the electric hand mixer. If I’m making chocolate milk shakes I will throw a half gallon of chocolate ice cream into the bowl and add a generous amount of evaporated milk. If you use regular milk it won’t be as rich. You can use cream but that gets kind of expensive. Then I pour in some chocolate syrup. I just kind of eye ball it. I add enough syrup to make it a little darker than the original ice cream. Then I shake a few ounces of powdered malt into it. The malt is purely optional but sure makes it good. Then I mix it all up with the mixer.
I like my milk shakes thick but not so thick that you can’t drink it. If I want to eat my milkshake with a spoon then I will just have ice cream and save myself a lot of trouble.
There you have it. It’s not so hard. If you want something other than chocolate just use vanilla and add your flavorings. At Christmas we make a delicious eggnog milk shake just by adding eggnog to vanilla ice cream. Just remember if you add milk you have got to compensate for the watering down effect and pump it up with some type of sweet and rich flavoring.
John