Homemade Dr Pepper Shake Recipe
A Dr Pepper milkshake that stays thick: the soda is simmered down to a syrup first, then blended with vanilla ice cream. Two shakes in 30 minutes.
- Total
- 30 min
- Serves
- 2
- Calories (est.)
- 490
A Dr Pepper milkshake is vanilla ice cream blended with Dr Pepper, and the way to make it taste of the soda without thinning it is to reduce the soda first. Simmer one cup of Dr Pepper down to a quarter cup of syrup, cool it, and blend it with three cups of vanilla ice cream and half a cup of cold Dr Pepper. It makes two.
Why the Dr Pepper is reduced
Soda poured straight into ice cream causes two problems, and both come from the water in it. It thins the shake into something closer to a float, and it dilutes its own flavour. Simmering drives off the water and the fizz and leaves the sugar and the flavour behind: a cup of Dr Pepper becomes a quarter cup of syrup, four times as strong.
The half cup of cold soda that goes in at the end keeps the shake pourable.
Recipe
Dr Pepper Shake
A thick Dr Pepper milkshake — the soda is reduced to a syrup and blended with vanilla ice cream and a splash of cold Dr Pepper. Two shakes.
- Prep
- 5 min
- Cook
- 12 min
- Total
- 30 min
- Serves
- 2
- Cuisine
- American
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups Dr Pepper
- 3 cups vanilla ice cream
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup whipped cream, for topping
- 2 maraschino cherries, for garnish
Instructions
- Pour 1 cup of the Dr Pepper into a small saucepan and simmer it over medium heat for 10 to 12 minutes, until it has reduced to about 1/4 cup of thin syrup. Keep the other 1/2 cup cold.
- Pour the syrup into a cup and chill it for 10 minutes. It thickens as it cools.
- Blend the ice cream, the syrup, the vanilla and the cold 1/2 cup of Dr Pepper for 15 to 20 seconds, only until smooth.
- Pour into two glasses and top with the whipped cream and a cherry.
Nutrition
- Calories:
- 490
Calculated from the ingredient quantities above using the USDA FoodData Central database, then divided by the number of servings. It is an estimate and will vary with the exact products you use.
What Dr Pepper is
Dr Pepper was created in the 1880s by the pharmacist Charles Alderton in Waco, Texas. It is sold as a blend of 23 flavours, and the formula is not public. That is the reason this shake is flavoured with the soda itself: there is no list of flavours to build it from.
Keeping the Dr Pepper shake thick
- Ice cream straight from the freezer. Soft ice cream makes a thin shake.
- Short blending. Fifteen to twenty seconds. A blender warms what it blends.
- Thicker: leave out the cold half cup of soda. Thinner: add more of it, a tablespoon at a time.
- Diet or zero-sugar Dr Pepper does not reduce to a syrup, because there is no sugar in it. Use it cold and skip the first step.
Strawberry Dr Pepper shake
PepsiCo publishes a foodservice recipe for a Dr Pepper Strawberries & Cream Shake: 4 ounces of the strawberry-flavoured soda, 3/4 ounce of strawberry syrup and 16 ounces of vanilla ice cream, blended. With regular Dr Pepper, add 2 tablespoons of strawberry syrup or 4 hulled strawberries to the blender.
Whataburger's Dr Pepper Shake
Whataburger sells the restaurant version from time to time. When the chain brought its Dr Pepper Shake back in January 2024, it described it as made with a vanilla shake base and Dr Pepper syrup. The reduced soda in this recipe is the home version of that syrup: the same flavour, concentrated, blended into vanilla ice cream.
More Dr Pepper and more shakes
The Dr Pepper cream soda is the drink without the blender.
For a shake with no soda in it, there are the Wendy's Frosty and the Whataburger Mexican hot chocolate shake.
Did you make this?
Let others know how it turned out.
