Soda-Fountain Cookies and Cream Shake with Cookie-Steeped Milk

By Sprig Originals ✓ · cooked up in Sprig

A spoon-standing cookies and cream shake built the way an old counter jerk would do it: whole chocolate sandwich cookies steeped in cold milk until the milk itself tastes like the cookie, then blended with tempered vanilla ice cream so the shake stays thick instead of soupy. Crushed cookies get folded in at the end — never fully blended — so you still get crunchy black flecks in every sip, under a cap of hand-whipped cream and a cookie-crumb rim.

Ingredients

• 6 chocolate sandwich cookies, broken in half
• 3/4 cup whole milk, very cold
• 1 pinch fine sea salt

• 1 1/2 pints good vanilla bean ice cream (about 3 cups)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tsp malted milk powder (optional)
• 6 chocolate sandwich cookies, coarsely crushed

• 1/2 cup heavy cream, cold
• 2 tsp powdered sugar
• 2 chocolate sandwich cookies, finely crushed, for rimming and dusting
• 2 tsp chocolate syrup, for the rim (optional)

• 2 tall glasses, chilled in the freezer

Instructions

1. Put two tall glasses in the freezer at least 20 minutes ahead — a frozen glass is the difference between a shake that lasts and one that melts in three minutes.
2. Make the cookie milk: put the 6 halved cookies in a bowl or jar, pour over the 3/4 cup cold milk, add the pinch of salt, and press the cookies under the surface with a spoon. Refrigerate 15 minutes, until the cookies are completely soft and the milk is gray-brown and smells like cookies.
3. Pour the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer set over a measuring cup, pressing hard on the softened cookies with the back of a spoon to squeeze out every bit of flavored milk. You want about 3/4 cup of thick, silty cookie milk; discard the pasty solids left in the strainer.
4. While the milk steeps, take the ice cream out of the freezer and let it sit on the counter 8 to 10 minutes, until a butter knife slides in with mild resistance. Slightly softened ice cream blends with almost no added liquid, which is how you get a genuinely thick shake.
5. Coarsely crush the 6 shake cookies: seal them in a zip-top bag and press with the flat of a rolling pin or the bottom of a glass until you have a mix of pea-sized pieces and dust. Do not pulverize them — the chunks are the point.
6. Scoop the softened ice cream into a blender. Add the cookie milk, vanilla, and malted milk powder if using. Blend on low for 15 to 20 seconds, stopping to scrape the sides down with a spatula, then pulse just until smooth, about 10 seconds more. Stop the moment it's uniform; over-blending warms the mix and thins it out.
7. Add the coarsely crushed cookies and pulse 2 or 3 times, one second each, or simply stir them in with a spatula. The shake should be thick enough that a spoon stands upright for a second before slowly leaning.
8. Whip the topping: beat the cold heavy cream with the powdered sugar in a chilled bowl by hand or with a mixer to soft peaks, 1 to 2 minutes — it should mound softly, not hold a stiff point.
9. Rim the frozen glasses: run a thin smear of chocolate syrup around the top inch of each glass (or brush with a little water), then roll the rim in the finely crushed cookies on a small plate.
10. Pour the shake into the glasses, mounding it slightly above the rim. Spoon the whipped cream on top, dust with the remaining fine cookie crumbs, and serve immediately with both a wide straw and a long spoon.
11. If you have shake left over, pour it into the freezer in a chilled pitcher for up to 20 minutes and re-stir before serving — it firms back up rather than separating.

Chef's tips

Nutrition (per serving, estimated)

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