I truly love a good milkshake. There are so many kinds and so many ways to jazz them up. But I tend to fall back on favorites: chocolate, coffee, mint chip. It’s a big commitment, drinking a milkshake. Basically about half my day’s calories, so I’d better really like it. Well, this one is really to like.

When I was a kid, I always wanted a multi-mixer. I would have settled for a single spindle machine and I used to go to restaurant supply companies and just stare at them. We eventually got a poor imitation of a commercial one, made for home use, but it didn’t have the moxie to really crank out a milkshake, so I usually used the blender. Now I have one of those insane blenders that they sell at Costco that can turn a whole chicken into soup or something. And it makes a decent milkshake, though not as good as a real Hamilton-Beach.

I never really knew proportions, instead, I just added a little of this, a little of that. Not always perfect, but never bad. Then I went and became a scientist so when I got the Vitamix, I started weighing stuff out.

We were talking about how good hot cocoa is, and how much we like milkshakes, and well. It turned into the best chocolate milkshake ever. The recipe is inspired by the hot cocoa recipe on the side of the Hershey’s packet. You mix up some cocoa powder and sugar with water and bring it to a boil. Then add to the ice cream in the blender. The recipe I have is perfect for 3 milkshakes, because that’s what I needed. For four, increase the ice cream to 900 g and the milk to 300 g. Not tested, but probably up the cocoa powder to 1/3 cup. Could get away with less sugar anyway because the ice cream is sweet.