On optimal combinations

[gominokouhai]

Chocolate and peanut butter.

Have ever two diverse flavours been so deliciously juxtaposed? Apart from maybe beef and cheese. Or bacon and maple syrup. It would seem that this is something the Yanks do really well: putting together two things that, on paper, should become an abomination unto all the laws of god and man, only to discover: dude, this is awesome.

Actually, it transpires that there is one thing better yet than even chocolate and peanut butter. Chocolate and peanut butter and bourbon. In a milkshake.

It's like everything that is good about America in a cup. It's the Liquid of the Free and the Hooch of the Brave.

In addition, and this point may be vital to full enjoyment of such a beverage: it looks like regular milkshake, and thus can be drunk at work.

I have been doing some experimentation, and my first conclusion is this: before you do anything else, before you even finish reading this post, go and buy chocolate syrup. I know you have drinking-chocolate powder in the cupboard. It is insufficient. If you don't have the finest American-themed grocery in the land just around the corner from you, and I'm guessing that most of you don't, then you can get it online.

The best goddamn milkshake in the universe, I'm not even joking

• Four or five scoops of vanilla iced cream.
• About a shot of chocolate syrup. If you've run out of chocolate syrup, three teaspoons of drinking chocolate forms a barely-acceptable substitute, but seriously, go and get some chocolate syrup.
• One shot of milk. That's if the iced cream is sufficiently soft. If the iced cream came directly from the freezer, use two shots of milk.
• Blend into a brown-ish paste. (Tip: pulse the blender. If you let the blender run, all the iced cream piles up on the sides and it won't get blent. Pulsing gives it chance to collapse down into the middle again.)
• Pour a little over half into a glass and give it to your peanut-allergic girlfriend. If you don't have a peanut-allergic girlfriend, you can probably order one online.
• Add a shot of bourbon and a level teaspoon of peanut butter. Smooth peanut butter, for Cthulhu's sake. And be careful with the amount. Ever tried eating peanut butter off the spoon?... you don't want that. Be stingy.
• Blend until it is blent. Then blend a bit more for luck. Peanut butter has a tendency to form hidden lumps.
• If you can control yourself, pour into a glass and enjoy. If not, drink it straight out of the blender. Nobody's watching, I promise.

 

Best served with a colourful straw and a rousing chorus of something from Assassins.

Comments

[miss_s_b]

What about if you have a chocolate allergic girlfriend?

[gominokouhai]

What are your thoughts on maple syrup?

[miss_s_b]

Unbearable sadness due to the death of my Canadian cousin. The last thing she ever sent me was a jar of home-extracted maple syrup.

My favourite milkshake recipe is 1 banana, half a pint of milk, and a good big slug of hazelnut Baileys to make it up to a pint, and then whizz it up in the blender till smooth.

[gominokouhai]

This house is divided on the value of banana in milkshake. I'm in favour, although I don't like bananas. stormsearch likes bananas but disapproves. I foresee a period of necessary experimentation.

Hazelnut Baileys... didn't know they had that. Nom.

[scotm]

This is the nectar of what would be Gods. Thank you for sharing.

[gominokouhai]

Can one attain godhood through the production of milkshake recipes? Only one way to find out.

[scotm]

It's the only thing that ever has.

[scotm]

Further points

1. A stick blender and a fat measuring jug works beautifully for agitating those bits of milkshake that do not blend easily.


2. OMFG - Lupe Pintos (until very recently) has American breakfast cereal! Om-nomnom. Walked in yesterday; came out with a bundle of stuff - now to make the finest chilli in existence. And will learn to fold a burrito without it looking horrible.


3. You're being stingy with the chocolate syrup - another half-shot at the minimum needed for optimum deliciousness.

[gominokouhai]

I've not tried it with a stick blender. (Or are they hand blenders? I forget which side of the argument I was on during KKC.) Glad to hear it works that way too.

Chocolate measures are approximate; I'm not actually going to fuck up my antique shot measures with goop. (Besides it wouldn't come out again into the drink.) So it's quite possible that you're actually right.

You're going to make the finest chilli in existence with American breakfast cereal? This I gotta see.