Wendy’s frosties are my favorite. I can have such a tiny ammt it just makes me mad to have to toss most of it. So I just abstain.
Alas, such is my life.
get a kids meal beck … the frostys they give those are maybe 2 tablespoons big
I worked at McDonald’s in 1980. The shake machine was distinct from the ice cream machine and dispensed different stuff. You’d almost fill a cup full of shake stuff, add a squirt of syrup and then mix it in the mixer for fifteen seconds or so. We had chocolate, vanilla and strawberry.
It wasn’t legal for us to call them “milk shakes”; always just shakes. They used stuff called ice milk rather than pure milk.
Also it took like fifteen minutes to clean the machine each night not even close to anything like several hours.
Wait—what? They no longer have strawberry shakes? Vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry were always the canonical shake flavors. When did that change? I must be really out of touch.
I haven’t had a McDonald’s shake in probably 40 years so I can only imagine what changes have been made since then. However I can distinctly recall the texture and it was not like that of the soft serve stuff that was used in the sundaes. It was slightly . . .grainy (?) in a good way. I also seem to recall watching them being dispensed and it looked like one consistently mixed stream to me.
These days I don’t really eat shakes - there’s other things I’d rather splurge my calories on- but damn if I don’t crave a shamrock shake every once in a while.
I agree with you. I’m sure, years ago, there were two different spigots - one for vanilla and one for chocolate. This was before they offered cones. This awful thing I had the other night was definitely vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup “mixed” in. I don’t recall them mixing the shakes back in the day. And you are also correct when you say they used to have a slightly grainy texture.
That sounds like an urban legend, like “KFC changed their name because it’s not real chicken.” I don’t think the FDA has an official definition of “milk shake.” Regardless, the first ingredient is milk: Small Vanilla Shake: Soft Serve & Vanilla Syrup | McDonald’s
They have strawberry shakes here because that’s what my daughter always gets. I can’t stand the chemical taste myself and I’m not the least bit picky when it comes to most fast food, but I’d rather just not have a shake if McDs is the only option.
You’re probably think thinking of xanthan gum which is a thickener often used in commercial ice cream and other food products, as well as lotions, including baby rash ointments. On cooking shows, cooks sometimes use it to instantly thicken things that aren’t cooked.
This is on par with the “OMG, the same stuff in yoga mats is in Subway bread!” :smack:
I haven’t had one in years, but the thing I remember about Micky D’s shakes was that they never melted!
Then I found out about this goo they use to make ‘fake snow’ which maintains it’s snow-like consistency, even at ‘room temp’.
Couldn’t ever enjoy a shake since.
Xanthan gum is also used a lot in gluten-free baking, to make the texture more closely resemble that of gluten-containing breads and other baked items.
It was forty years ago and a lot has changed. We definitely couldn’t call them milk shakes and it had something to do with the ingredients.
Read my post above about xanthan gum and yoga mats and Subway bread, then read this article about why some commercial “ice cream” doesn’t “melt”
TL;DR. Xanthan, guar gum and other approved thickeners, plus less cream = less melting.
AFAIK, the difference between most soft serve ice cream (which used to be called ice milk because of the lower cream content) is the temperature of the machine. On Food Network there was premium ice cream shop that only had soft serve. They explained that they kept their churns at a lower temp, never allow the mix being fully frozen, which I believe below freezing temp (which is why to need to add salt to the ice in an ice cream churn. Just ice alone won’t do it).
While high cream content ice cream can be churned into butter (as seen on cooking shows), ice milk contains little to no cream and will never turn to butter. Try whipping skim or 2% milk into butter or whipping cream. Won’t happen.
I believe the low/no fat content is the reason for the ice crystals. Back when they actually sold ice milk (no labeled low or reduced fat) in cartons, it would never freeze rock hard like regular ice cream. I believe Milk Nickels were ice milk versus Creamsicles which was ice cream. They weren’t a nickel when I was a kid, when you can buy everything individually, I think they were 8 or 10 cents, but they were definitely cheaper than Creamsicles, but more than Popscicles which were 7 cents.
At least for me, the difference between ice milk and ice cream is that premium ice cream is sticky on my lips and tongue because of the high cream content. McDonalds and Dairy Queen can be sticky, but in a different way, not creamy way.
Doesn’t the rest of your wrekking crew like the Frosties at Wendy’s? You could all share one.
Chief Wiggum: Do they have Krusty-Partially-Gelatinated-Non-Dairy-Gum-Based-Beverages?
Lou: Mm-hm. And they call 'em “Shakes”
Eddie: Heh. “Shakes”. You don’t know what you’re gettin’.
Chief Wiggum: Well I know what I’m gettin’. Some donuts.
But they did change. McDonald’s used to have shake machines, separate from the ice cream machines. They were filled with shake mix of the appropriate flavor, either vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, or special (seasonal, like shamrock or orange). These were great.
Then at some point, they switched the cup and how they’re made, in an effort to be fancy and to charge a whole lot more. Now they’re blended with vanilla ice cream from the ice cream machine, plus whatever syrup flavor you want, and then topped with whipped cream. They’re difficult to drink with a normal straw, and they take forever for the stores to make.
On the other hand, this is probably much closer to what Ray Kroc was selling, and can be better shakes if you buy them at a proper dairy or soda fountain and don’t expect to have to drink one in your car.
They didn’t make any change to how the shakes were made (other than adding whipped cream) at the time they switched to the clear cups. They may have made some change years earlier, but not then. But people were certain the shakes tasted differently when the only thing that changed were the cups.
They also contain a ton of sugar. “Diabetes in a Cup”