Kitchen Report

The other day Thomas sent me an e-mail. It simply said, “Bacon milkshake is trending on Yahoo.”

Huh?

My first reaction was: “Don’t say things like that to me.”

The second one was: “Does it taste good?”

It turns out that this was not a bacon-fueled hoax, but an actual drink that the Web browsing public was searching for online. It’s kind of an “in the know” thing, because you have to ask for it by name at Jack in the Box restaurants since they don’t feature it on their menus.

We got curious about this at CSMonitor.com and immediately began researching this latest fast-food fad. It turns out the Jack in the Box “bacon milkshake” actually contains no bacon. Big surprise.

As appetizing as this sounds, we couldn’t do our own taste test because the closest Jack in the Box is more than 900 miles away.

Thomas, who was kicking around Tulsa, Okla., at the time, volunteered to check it out. Close to midnight (which is about the time when all culinary judgement goes out the window anyway), he sent in a pictorial report:

(Is it just me, or does the “Jack” in the above photo actually spell “Yuck”?)

(As if a real glass is going to help…)

I suppose this last photo is to prove he actually drank the thing. “It’s not … that … bad,” he said.

Right-o. I never would have guessed.

But it did get me thinking, if Jack in the Box was using fake syrup flavoring, what would the real thing taste like?

So when Thomas arrived a few days later, we conducted a few experiments. Or at least I worked on figuring out a successful recipe and Thomas served as a willing tester. Aside from saying, “You need more bacon in it,”  he liked it! Hey, Mikey!

And to my surprise, I liked it, too.

If you can get past the initial – ew – factor, you really can’t lose with the flavors of salty bacon, sweet maple syrup, smokey toasted walnuts, and rich vanilla bean ice cream.

Bottoms up!

Homemade bacon milkshake
Serves 2

4-6 pieces of bacon (depending on your bacon threshold), cooked
1/4 cup walnuts, toasted
6-7 scoops of vanilla bean ice cream
1/8 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup milk

Cook bacon in a frying pan on the stove top until good and crispy. Drain on a paper-towel covered plate and allow to cool. In a clean pan or a toaster oven, toast the walnuts.

In a food processor, grind the bacon and walnuts together until fine.

In a blender, combine bacon, walnuts, ice cream, maple syrup, and milk and blend until smooth. You may want to adjust the milk and/or ice cream to satisfy your shake-thickness preference.

Serve immediately in a tall glass with a straw.

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Jim Gaffigan – Bacon