Whew! After those lightened up Cheeseburger Stuffed Shells, my first thought was to find a milkshake recipe. This Grilled Cherry Milkshakes recipe sounded like the perfect followup. Burgers and milkshakes are such a classic American combo, and I haven’t had a milkshake in ages. And, like those stuffed shells, this is a lightened up version of good old-fashioned comfort food. Plus I finally get to try grilled cherries. I have to admit I was a little disappointed when I didn’t get to grill them for the Whipped Ricotta Toast with Balsamic Cherries I made a while back. Not that they weren’t good, but grilled cherries!
Grilling a milkshake is kind of impossible. However, grilling the cherries you’re going to put in said milkshake is totally possible.
The Ingredients
As you can see, there are only a few ingredients in this recipe. I had the vanilla extract and honey on hand. That left me to shop for the fresh cherries and both types of coconut milk (lite and regular). Not a terrible shopping list at all!
The Process
Making these grilled cherry milkshakes wasn’t difficult, but it did take some planning. First, I had to buy an ice cube tray so I could freeze the full-fat coconut milk into cubes. Prepping them only took two minutes to do, including thoroughly mixing the coconut milk with an immersion blender. However, I had to wait overnight for the cubes to completely freeze.
I grilled the cherries the same day I prepped the coconut milk cubes because they also had to cool in the refrigerator. They took me 16 minutes to cut in half and pit, then another 10 minutes to grill on the stove. The recipe does say to use a grill pan on a grill heated to 375℉, but I don’t have an indoor grill. Instead, I kept my stove on medium-low, and I think I got good results. No charring, but also no burning.
The next day I mixed the frozen coconut milk ice cubes with the chilled light coconut milk in my food processor. I opted not to use my blender because the cubes were on the large side, and my food processor is more powerful than my blender. I didn’t have any trouble blending up two batches of coconut milk, and I put both into the freezer for an hour to firm up a bit.
Then I rinsed out my food processor and pureed the grilled cherries so they would be ready to go when the frozen coconut milk mixture was. I couldn’t wait! Actually making the milkshakes was the quickest and simplest part. All I had to do was divide the grilled cherry between two glasses, top with the frozen coconut milk mixture, and stir.
