Milk Shakes, Ice Cream, and Creamy Smoothies, All from Your Smoothie Blender

Who doesn't like thick homemade creamy milk shakes, or a bowl of rich creamy ice cream? Ice cream ranks right up there with all the great comfort foods.

Did you know that ice cream is a natural additive for making smoothies? Well, let's just explore that option.

The subject of ice cream is as big as the Rocky Mountains. Much is written on the best way to make it, store it, and how to eat it. It has a long history, dating back hundreds of years.

Modern refrigeration has made production and storage much easier.

It is simply a favorite dessert for many. And why not? Ice cream is made from dairy, and has a high butterfat content. It is this butterfat content that gives ice cream its rich, creamy, velvety texture.

Add sweeteners, fruit flavorings, and you end up with one great tasting, high calorie, high in fat, low in nutrition dessert.

It is exactly this reason that I created this site, The Smoothie Insider, to explore alternatives to high calorie ice cream, and to create low calorie milk shakes.

P.S. I love ice cream and could eat it every night...with chocolate sauce, and nuts, and a cup of coffee.

The Smoothie Insider would like to present you with some healthier alternatives. OK, you can call it what you want, but, you will enjoy these desserts that offer less fat and sugar than typical ice creams and full fat milk shakes.

To give you an idea, we took this off of a nutrition label for vanilla ice cream. A 1/2 cup (and that's not much!) serving size has about 150 calories, but whopping 8 grams of fat, of which 5 of those are saturated, 16 grams of sugar and 32 milligrams of cholesterol.

A scaled down version has 60 calories per serving, 1 gram of fat, unsaturated, 2 milligrams of cholesterol, an 12 grams of sugar.

You are thinking that sounds great, but who has time to make homemade ice cream. We agree, traditional methods of making ice cream take a lot of time, something we are in short supply of these days.

For now, we are presenting two recipes, vanilla and chocolate, as a base, and you can decide on additional flavoring additives.

The Smoothie Insider's solution is to make Blender Ice Cream. This method is quick and easy, so it the clean up.

The only caveat here is you are going to need a machine capable of handling the load. We cover that on the blenders page. Click here for information on choosing blenders.

Vanilla Ice Cream

Blend all ingredients, then add 2 cups of ice, and blend. If you desire a thicker consistency, add more ice.

You can always add a little fresh or frozen fruit, jam, etc. for flavoring.

As you can see by the ingredient list, this is a very lean recipe, and at first, may seem rather bland compared to full fat ice cream. The whole point though is to create a low fat dessert that can satisfy a sweet tooth, and one that you can live with.

Chocolate Ice Cream

As with the vanilla ice cream recipe, mix the ingredients until smooth, then add 2 cups of ice and blend. Add more ice to reach the desired consistency.

Play around with these base recipes. Try adding some yogurt, and some different fruits such as banana, peaches, or strawberries. Instead of vanilla, try adding a splash of Amaretto, or a flavored liqueur.

If your after the just plain old fashioned milk shakes, the best resources are hard copy recipe books. Making Homemade Ice Cream and Milk Shakes will have a great selection to choose from at reasonable prices.

You are on the milkshake page, click here to return home