A lot of people have experienced cravings for limited time drinks that are not in season. It sucks when your mind desires something to the point you can hardly wait for that time of the year, but there is a solution to this. Instead of waiting months for your favorite drink to return, find a recipe to recreate it!
It’s easier to accomplish than it seems: just a simple google search and a brief shopping trip is all you need to start making your own drink. I found a recipe for McDonalds’s Shamrock Shake by Lizzy Briskin on delish.com and two recipes for Starbucks’s Lavender Crème Frappuccino and Strawberry Shortcake Frappuccino by Sues on wearenotmartha.com and decided to give them all a shot.
Shamrock Shake: 3/5
This recipe called for blending 4 ¼ cups of vanilla ice cream, ½ cup whole milk, ¼ teaspoon peppermint extract, and optionally, topped with whipped cream and green food coloring, which I skipped. I gave the finished product a taste, compared it to the real thing from McDonald’s, and as it turned out my homemade shake tasted strongly minty although still delicious. The actual Shamrock Shake has a far less minty taste, so I believe that with a few more scoops of ice cream or maybe less mint extract, my recreation would taste like the real thing.
Lavender Crème Frappuccino: 1/5
This recipe required blending a ¾ cup of whole milk, ¼ cup heavy cream, 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract, 1 tablespoon of lavender powder, and ½ teaspoon xanthan gum. I then added 1 cup of ice as instructed and blended it a second time, let it sit until it was smooth, and drank it. People have compared the taste of the original drink to the taste of Froot Loop-flavored milk. However, the copycat tasted extremely different from how people described the original drink, tasting more herbal than sweet despite the vanilla extract. I wasn’t really a fan of it.
Strawberry Shortcake Frappuccino: 4/5
As another frappuccino, this recipe needed my blender again. This time, I blended 1 cup of whole milk, ¼ cup home-made strawberry puree using 16 ounces of strawberries, 2 teaspoons of sugar, a teaspoon of lemon, 2 teaspoons of cinnamon dolce syrup, ¼ teaspoon of xanthan gum, and I blended a cup of ice as instructed afterward. I let it sit until smooth before drinking it. The original drink by Starbucks is described as a sweet concoction with a hint of cinnamon, and the copycat tasted sweet with a strong strawberry flavor and a little bit of cinnamon, but my drink was overall enjoyable.
After trying all of the homemade drinks, I concluded that these recipes are mostly satisfactory year-round substitutes for the real deals. It was much easier than I thought to recreate these beverages, and it will save you money too, so I recommend everyone tries making their favorite limited-run drinks from home as well.
