Milkshake

Portland-based Salt & Straw adds a drop of vinegar and a hint of pepper to balance the sweetness in this strawberry shake, plus a splash of rum to make it deliciously complex in flavor. If you're making this for non-drinkers, just omit the booze.

This dessert was inspired by the Frozen Hot Chocolate at Serendipity, a restaurant in New York City.

This recipe is in honor of Hadley Fruit Orchards, a legendary stop on the way to Palm Springs where “ice cold date shakes” have been soothing weary and overheated drivers on Route 10 for years.

If you like ayran (preceding recipe), the slightly savory yogurt drink of Turkey, you might try this, the even more unusual yogurt beverage of India. Like many beverages, it comes with a variety of health claims, but regardless of those, it’s refreshing and—obviously—protein packed. I have had this with a clove of garlic included and with so much black pepper—probably around 2 teaspoons for this quantity—that I was stunned. This version is relatively tame.

Shakes like this one are produced just about everywhere soft fruit is grown; sometimes they’re very sweet and sometimes not. You must play with the recipe a bit to find out where your own taste lies. For fruit shake ideas, see the variations.

This drink is best in the summertime, when watermelons are at their sweetest and most flavorful. For cooling off and rehydrating on a hot day, there is simply nothing better. Because watermelons are huge, relatively inexpensive, and have a high water content, they make a good base for drinks. Experiment with using different varieties of tart and sweet apples.

This rich drink makes a filling breakfast. For a superb eggnog, add orange zest and rum, brandy, or bourbon. Before buying bananas, read about their production in “Must-Buy Organics,” on page 16. If you like nondairy milk, then blending your own nut milk, as described in this recipe, is much more economical than buying it premade. And unlike store-bought nut milk, it comes without added sugar, preservatives, and hard-to-recycle cartons. Homemade nut milk works beautifully for cereal, smoothies, baking, and simply drinking on its own.

It has been successfully argued that these soda fountain favorites are a good source of protein—after all, they’re full of milk and peanut butter. We try to drink them regularly for that reason alone.

Whip up one of these pretty pastel shakes for a casual dessert or any time you finish supper wishing you had made dessert. We suggest Chai Shake after a curry, Vanilla Rum Milkshake after West Indian Red Beans & Coconut Rice (page 69), Pineapple Ginger Shake after Asian Braised Fish with Greens (page 160)—you get the picture.

Whip up one of these pretty pastel shakes for a casual dessert or any time you finish supper wishing you had made dessert. We suggest Chai Shake after a curry, Vanilla Rum Milkshake after West Indian Red Beans & Coconut Rice (page 69), Pineapple Ginger Shake after Asian Braised Fish with Greens (page 160)—you get the picture.

Whip up one of these pretty pastel shakes for a casual dessert or any time you finish supper wishing you had made dessert. We suggest Chai Shake after a curry, Vanilla Rum Milkshake after West Indian Red Beans & Coconut Rice (page 69), Pineapple Ginger Shake after Asian Braised Fish with Greens (page 160)—you get the picture.

Whip up one of these pretty pastel shakes for a casual dessert or any time you finish supper wishing you had made dessert. We suggest Chai Shake after a curry, Vanilla Rum Milkshake after West Indian Red Beans & Coconut Rice (page 69), Pineapple Ginger Shake after Asian Braised Fish with Greens (page 160)—you get the picture.

I’m sure it would be nice to summer in the Hamptons or spend weekends bronzing poolside on the rooftop of a trendy hotel in Manhattan, but the fact is there’s baking to be done. To banish the summertime blues, we at the bakery take turns whipping up our own interpretations of the classic vanilla shake. Use the recipe below as the basis for your own adventures in milk shake mixology. My favorite rendition came about when Kylie, part of the bakery’s prized counter staff, added a piece of chocolate crumb to the mix and created the most amazing brownie shake in the history of frozen beverages. (Thanks, Kylie!) You can do her one better by adding chocolate chip cookies, fresh mint, or—gasp!—a slice of apple pie.

I enjoy going out for Indian food and pairing a cool, calming lhassi with a heavily spiced meal. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to develop one for my dessert menu. This one—which I worked out with my friend and onetime sous-chef Jason Casey—is creamy smooth and softly perfumed with rose water and cinnamon.

What can I say about this one? Sometimes the best things in life are the simplest, and a thick and creamy vanilla milkshake is definitely one of those things. The fresh vanilla bean will give you a shake flecked with tiny dark specks of recognizable vanilla, but its true and intense flavor is a quality far greater than cosmetic. Basic but never boring, the vanilla shake can also be doctored up in dozens of ways. I’ve included a couple of my favorite variations below.

Don’t laugh . . . it works, and it’s good. The key is to make sure that your marshmallows are really toasted to a deep golden brown color on all sides to get the most flavor. Don’t walk away from the oven because the marshmallows brown quickly. Would a dollop of “Fluffy” Whipped Cream (page 154) on top be overkill? I think not! In the mood for S’mores? Just blend the toasted marshmallows into the Double Chocolate Milkshake (page 134) and add a few tablespoons of crushed graham crackers on top of the whipped cream.

This might be one of the more esoteric shakes in this book, but I hope you find it intriguing, not off-putting. The extra step of roasting the pineapple is well worth your time. Roasting concentrates the pineapple’s flavor and intensifies its sweetness as the heat of the oven caramelizes the fruit’s natural sugars. Tart lemon sorbet is added to balance that sweetness and for its icy texture. Using pineapple juice gives this shake a depth of flavor and refreshing quality that milk wouldn’t provide.

I am one of the few people whose mother never packed a Fluffernutter sandwich in their school lunch box. You know what? That’s okay. The thought of peanut butter, marshmallow, and banana “sandwiched” between two slices of squishy, flavorless bread was not so appetizing to me even as a child. However, when you get rid of the bread and add some ice cream and milk to those three ingredients, it’s a totally different story. If only my mom had filled my lunch-box thermos with this shake.