How to Make the Perfect Milkshake According to Milkshake Monday’s Larry Canam

Recipe videos have become a source of both comfort and inspiration for the countless curious on social media. In the case of 71-year-old Larry Canam and his Milkshake Monday videos on TikTok, his kind smile, eagerly delivered instructions, and the loud whirring of his 50-year-old Waring blender continually attract new followers and endear him even more to his devoted fans. Currently, with 64 million views, his most-watched video is his recipe for a peanut butter milkshake.

Canam, who lives in Canada, didn’t set out to be a social media phenom. Having created a TikTok account (@thewhyteelephant) to share cocktail videos he made in his home bar with his son David, the Milkshake Monday videos were an offshoot series. What was kicked off by a commenter’s request for an alcohol-free recipe three years ago has gone on to garner Canam 6.7 million followers on TikTok and a book deal. His new book, Milkshake Monday: 80+ Frosty Treats to Make Any Day Special, includes many of the recipes he features in his videos as well as new ones, including protein shakes and boozy shakes. Here, Canam shares his fuss-free tips on how to blend (or handmix) perfect milkshakes at home.

Your recipes are meant to be simple enough for anyone to make, but you insist on using homemade syrups and sauces versus store-bought. Why is that?

If you’ve ever made your own caramel sauce, you’ll be pretty impressed with yourself. First of all, it’s amazing. And the second thing is it is extremely easy to make. You’ll make it in no time at all. You may have a hard time buying a good caramel sauce in a store. You could probably go and buy yourself some Hershey’s chocolate syrup, maybe even a good strawberry syrup. But that’s pretty much where it ends. 

So coffee milk is a state drink of Rhode Island. But you’re not going to find that in many stores. But once you’ve made your own coffee milk and whether you’re pouring it over ice cream or you’re making a milkshake or you’re just making coffee milk as opposed to chocolate milk, the flavor, the taste is incredible. Again, it’s easy to make and is something that you’re not going to find in most stores.

Why do you prefer to use 2% milk for your shakes?

Two percent is just the milk that I use for cereal. It’s the milk that I use around the house if I’m going to make a recipe. But the percentage of milk fat in milk really determines the consistency of a milkshake. You can go from skim milk to 1 percent, 2 percent, whole. Every one of those, when the milk fat content raises in a milkshake, will affect the consistency. Same with ice cream. If you look at the nutrition list, it’ll tell you the level of milk fat in the ice cream. What might be, to you, the perfect milkshake is always going to come down to a ratio of milk to ice cream: the more milk, the thinner it’ll be; the more ice cream, the thicker it will be. 

Bartenders recommend chilling glassware before serving a cocktail. Can you share why you prefer to chill your glass before pouring in the shake?

The reason that I chill the glass is the same reason people when they’re having a cup of tea will put hot water in the teacup first instead of making tea in a cup that’s cold. Or the same in reverse, pouring a milkshake into a warm glass. First of all, it’s partly in the effect. It looks better. It’s the same if you went out to A&W and you got a float, and they would take one of those frosty mugs out of the refrigerator. It just has a whole feel to it and it does make a difference. 

Besides adding more ice cream to create a thicker milkshake, what else can one do?

Some places that make milkshakes add a half a cup of ice. It freezes it more so it makes it appear as if it’s a thicker milkshake. But the taste is going to be thinner. What I like to do, and this is where you can get creative if you’re making, for example, a strawberry milkshake, is add a half a cup of frozen strawberries. So when you do that, you’ve added something frozen that’s going to make the shake thicker but at the same time it’s going to add flavor.

Can anything be turned into a milkshake?

There really are so many options. When I’m out at the supermarket, it’s my inspiration. I’ve been down the cereal aisle and it’s Fruity Pebbles, Coco Pebbles, Fruit Loops, and Lucky Charms. Everything can become a milkshake because everybody has an attachment to it. That’s probably true of anything chocolate: bars, desserts. So that’s my inspiration. I can go to a store and I can say, okay, there’s a cookie that I haven’t used. My formula stays pretty much the same. It’s a half a cup of milk, three scoops of ice cream, and maybe a couple of the cookies thrown in and one on top. The only thing that really changes is the ingredients.

What’s your recommended workaround for those who don’t have a blender?

Okay, I was getting a lot of young people saying to me, “I’d like to have a milkshake but I don’t have a blender.” And I really wrestled with that because I’m thinking, you know, what can I do for you? Because blenders are what you need to make milkshakes, right? So I looked at the blender and I thought, what is it? It’s a glass jar with a spinning blade inside. I took a mason jar and I put in three scoops of ice cream and a half a cup of milk. I took a fork and I started stirring and thinking, this is going to take forever. It took seconds.

I thought, Okay, that’s a vanilla milkshake, but could I add anything to it? Well, peanut butter. So I add peanut butter to it and I stir it up, and you can see little flecks that hadn’t quite blended. So, I screwed the top and then shook it for about 15 seconds and took the lid off. Put a straw in it, and the straw stood straight up. One of the best milkshakes I’ve ever made in my life. Since then, I’ve taken peanut butter and added a scoop of powdered banana, or you can just use a banana and mash it up. You can throw it in, stir it up, shake it up. You can have a peanut butter banana milkshake, or add chocolate for peanut butter and chocolate. You can do anything. You can make almost any milkshake you want.