Recipe: Maine Blueberry Milkshake

If you’ve ever been to Duckfat, one of Portland, Maine’s hotspot restaurants, you know they make some of the best milkshakes around. While you can’t go wrong with one of their panini or an order of poutine served over duck fat fries, it’s their milkshakes we crave the most — specifically the Maine blueberry shake. Inspired by the folks at Duckfat, we developed a milkshake recipe with a base that’s even better than ice cream and blended in just the right amount of ripe blueberries. If there is just one cool, creamy treat that makes its way into your hands this summer, it should be this rich blueberry milkshake.

Part of what makes Duckfat’s milkshakes so incredible is their choice of ingredients — namely, swapping the standard ice cream base for extra-creamy gelato. Following their lead, this version starts with vanilla gelato. And because each ingredient really shines through in this shake, I recommend picking up a good-quality pint.

While gelato starts out with a similar custard base as ice cream, it uses a higher proportion of milk and a lower proportion of cream and eggs. It’s also churned at a much slower rate, incorporating less air and leaving the gelato more dense than ice cream. Not only does gelato make this shake especially luxurious, but it also leaves it with an even milkier flavor that lets the intensity of the blueberries shine through. To up that milky flavor and creamy texture even more, we threw in a couple spoonfuls of milk powder for good measure.