Milkshake
Ice cream and cold milk in a ratio that holds both thickness and flavour. The whole trick is to blend briefly — a long blend turns the shake into lukewarm milk.
Drinks with ice cream · Hands-on: 8 min · Waiting: no waiting · Total time: 8 min · Servings: 2 · Difficulty: Easy
A milkshake is the fastest way to turn homemade ice cream into something else: ice cream, a little cold milk, thirty seconds in a blender.
Two mistakes ruin it. The first is too much milk — the shake becomes sweet milk soup. The ratio that holds is roughly 2.5 parts ice cream to 1 part milk (300 g of ice cream to 120 ml of milk). The second is blending too long: friction from the blade warms the mix, so after a minute the shake is thinner and warmer than when you started. Blend in short pulses and stop the moment the last lumps disappear.
The pinch of salt is not decoration — without it a sweet mix tastes flat.
What you need
- 300 g ice cream (about 6 scoops), taken out of the freezer 5 minutes ahead
- 120 ml cold whole milk
- a pinch of salt
- 1 tsp vanilla extract — optional
- whipped cream and sprinkles to finish — optional
Method
- Put two tall glasses in the freezer for 15 minutes.
- Pour the milk into the blender first, then add the ice cream and salt. Liquid at the bottom means the blade catches straight away and you do not have to over-blend.
- Blend in short pulses, 20 to 30 seconds in total, scraping the sides once. Stop as soon as the last lumps of ice cream are gone.
- Taste. If the shake is so thick it will not pour, add milk a spoonful at a time — one spoonful at a time.
- Pour into the chilled glasses, top with whipped cream and serve with a wide straw or a spoon.
Serving and storage
A milkshake does not keep — within half an hour it separates into foam and milk. If you must make it ahead, hold it in the freezer for no more than 20 minutes and stir briefly before serving.
Tips
- For a thicker shake: swap the milk for 80 ml of double cream and add 50 g more ice cream.
- Dairy-free: plant drinks work, but oat and almond are thinner — use about a third less.
- A chocolate shake takes a pinch of instant coffee, a strawberry one the juice of half a lemon. Both lift a flavour that would otherwise be only sweet.
- Fold in cookie or fruit pieces at the very end with one short pulse, so they stay in pieces.
Which ice cream works
Shop-bought will do, but homemade makes it a different dessert. These recipes of ours fit:
Amount: 150 g (about 3 scoops) per serving
Egg-free vanilla ice cream (Philadelphia style)
Pure, creamy vanilla with no egg yolks — fresh, milky and ready without cooking a custard.
Chocolate ice cream
Deep chocolate flavour from both cocoa and dark chocolate, softened with three egg yolks.
Creamy strawberry ice cream
Ripe strawberries and cream — pink, fragrant and made without cooking the fruit.
Cookies & cream
Vanilla cream ice cream packed with pieces of cream-filled chocolate biscuits.
Salted caramel gelato
A milk gelato made with homemade caramel and a pinch of salt — a deep, faintly bitter sweetness.
Strawberry frozen yogurt
Pink frozen yogurt made with fresh strawberries — a summer classic that children love too.
More desserts
Affogato
A scoop of vanilla ice cream drowned in hot espresso. Two ingredients, five minutes, and the only thing that really matters is temperature — of the ice cream and of the coffee.
Cola float
Vanilla ice cream in cold cola. The foam makes itself, and that is the whole point — it just has to rise inside the glass, not onto the table.
Related articles
Which cream and which milk to use in ice cream
How much fat, milk solids and water milk, cream, milk powder and condensed milk each bring — and what happens to the mix when you swap cream for milk.
A dessert with ice cream is not an ice cream recipe — we do not compute its mix composition or nutrition.