Five Guys
Five Guys Milkshake Copycat Recipe
A thick vanilla base and eight mix-ins you combine yourself. Three minutes a shake.
How to Make Baskin-Robbins Milkshake at Home
The Ratio Is Four to One, and Everything Else Is Detail
A shake thick enough to hold a straw upright, in ninety seconds.
AI-generated illustration created for food.fast. It is not photographic evidence of a prepared batch.
A shop milkshake is thick because of its ratio and its temperature, not because of anything added to it. Four parts ice cream to one part milk by volume is roughly where every chain sits, and it is far less milk than most people use at home.
The second half is the blend. Every second in the blender adds friction, friction adds heat, and heat thins the shake. Ten to fifteen seconds is enough - stop the moment it is smooth.
Everything else is flavouring, and the base ratio does not change whichever direction you take it in.
How this page shows its working
The method gives quantities, timings and observable cues rather than asking you to guess. The 3 cases in If it goes wrong explain likely causes and corrective action.
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Why your shake comes out thin
Three causes, in order of how often they are the problem.
Too much milk. A splash looks like nothing in a jug and is often double what the ratio calls for. Measure it once.
Over-blending. A blender is a heater with blades in it. Thirty seconds is enough to melt a good share of the ice cream.
Soft ice cream. Starting from ice cream that has been sitting out means starting from something already half melted. Use it straight from the freezer and let the blender do the softening.
Getting it thicker still
If you want the near-solid texture of a diner shake, there are two levers.
Chill the glass. Ten minutes in the freezer. The shake stops melting on contact with the glass, which is where a surprising amount of thinning happens.
Add a tablespoon of skimmed milk powder. It thickens without adding liquid, which is exactly the problem with every other thickener. It also deepens the dairy flavour, which is why several chains use it.
How to make it, step by step
Make it
-
Chill the glasses while you gather everything
Ten minutes in the freezer is enough. A cold glass stops the shake melting on contact, which is where much of the thinning happens.
About 10 min -
Blend ten to fifteen seconds only
Ice cream, milk, milk powder, vanilla and salt into the blender. Blend just until smooth and stop. Every extra second adds friction heat and thins the result.
About 1 min -
Pour and serve immediately
Pour into the chilled glasses and serve straight away. A shake left standing separates within a few minutes, and no amount of stirring brings it back.
About 1 min
What went wrong, and how to fix it
Each entry names a likely cause as well as a correction, so the advice remains useful when equipment, ingredients or batch size differ.
Thin and runny
- Why it happened
- Too much milk, or blended too long.
- What to do
- Four parts ice cream to one part milk, and stop the blender the second it is smooth.
Will not blend at all
- Why it happened
- Ice cream too hard and not enough liquid to get it moving.
- What to do
- Add a tablespoon of milk at a time, no more, until the blades catch.
Separates in the glass
- Why it happened
- Left standing.
- What to do
- Make it last and drink it first. Nothing fixes a separated shake.
Questions people actually ask about this recipe
What is the right ice cream to milk ratio for a milkshake?
Four parts ice cream to one part milk by volume. That is roughly 500 ml of ice cream to 125 ml of milk, which is considerably less milk than most home versions use.
Why is my milkshake thin?
Usually over-blending. A blender generates friction heat, and thirty seconds is enough to melt a good share of the ice cream. Stop at ten to fifteen seconds.
What thickens a shake without watering it down?
A tablespoon of skimmed milk powder. It thickens and deepens the dairy flavour without adding any liquid, which is the problem with every other option.
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The recipes that go with this one, or that use what you have just made.
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A proper hot fudge sauce - thick, glossy and made with cocoa and butter - over ice cream. Eight minutes for the sauce.