Kitchen Klutz: Homemade shakes are yummy!

**Check back Monday for this recipe

By Michèle De Meglio

It would’ve been great to be a 1950s prepster sipping strawberry milkshakes in an authentic malt shop.

The hunky football star would catch my eye as I delicately lifted a maraschino cherry to my lips. And before you knew it, we’d be going steady!

There’d be talk of white picket fences, walk-in closets, a tiny Labrador, even tinier babies –

On second thought, that whole barefoot and pregnant housewife thing is so not for me.

Picking and choosing my fave ‘50s traditions, I created a persona of “single gal making it on her own while waiting for Danny Zuko to walk through the door.” Bad boys are so much cooler than jocks, anyway!

In a red and white polka dot top (with a bow!), ravishing red lipstick and super high pigtails, my 50s malt shop gal getup was complete!

Now it was time to make some milkshakes.

I normally prefer classic vanilla milkshakes, but I wanted to be creative here so I concocted three geez-I-hope-they’re-yummy recipes.

First up, chocolate peanut butter malt. Yeah, it sounds weird but I thought, folks like Reese’s Pieces so peanut butter, chocolate and ice cream should work.

I blended equal parts fat-free milk and chocolate ice cream along with a tablespoon of peanut butter and a healthy squirt of chocolate syrup.

I poured the creamy drink into a porcelain malt glass, topped with whipped cream, a maraschino cherry and a kooky Krazy Straw, and moved on to making two more shakes.

Next up, chocolate sprinkles mixed into a light vanilla shake. For this baby, I combined one cup of vanilla ice cream, one cup of milk, a dash of vanilla extract and two teaspoons of sugar in my blender.

For the final malt, I tossed handfuls of strawberries, raspberries and blueberries in the blender with milk, strawberry ice cream, sugar and vanilla extract.

After a few seconds of processing, it was time to sample my creations!

Verdict: The chocolate peanut butter shake was a dud. The peanut butter totally overpowered the chocolate flavors and made this drink less yummy and more yucky.

As for the vanilla with chocolate sprinkles, this malt was much lighter than typical shakes and had a lovely crunch thanks to the sprinkles.

My favorite had to be the berry, berry, berry milkshake. It actually seemed more like a sweet smoothie than a heavy ice cream treat.

With two out of three milkshakes a hit, I have just one thing to say – bring back malt shops!

Kitchen Klutz follows 20-something Michèle De Meglio as she burns casseroles and her fingers, all in hope of trading frozen dinners for home cooking.