Sunday Morning Milkshake

Ingredients

• 1 banana
• 120 g berries
• 1 litre milk
• vanilla
• 6 tsp sugar

Method

Freeze the banana and berries beforehand — at least two hours, ideally overnight. This matters. Frozen fruit means you're building a thick, cold smoothie-making rather than a watery drink that thaws in the glass. Room-temperature fruit and milk produce a tepid slick that separates within minutes.

Slice the banana into coins before freezing; this cuts down on motor strain and ensures even blending. The pieces should be no thicker than 1 cm. Peel it first, obviously.

Drop the frozen banana, berries, and sugar into the blender bowl. Use 6 teaspoons of caster sugar — this is your baseline for medium sweetness without drowning the fruit's tartness. Crack open a vanilla pod, scrape the seeds into the mix, and discard the pod, or use 1/2 teaspoon of decent vanilla extract. Ground vanilla powder is a third option if you have it; it won't dissolve as smoothly but the flavour is more concentrated.

Pour in the milk to the 1-litre mark on the blender's side, or slightly below if your machine is undersized — overfilling causes splashing during the initial burst of blending. Start the blender on low speed for five seconds to break down the largest ice chunks, then move to high speed. The mixture should look utterly smooth and homogeneous within 30 to 40 seconds. Listen for the change in motor pitch: it drops when the ice has surrendered and the friction eases. If you hear grinding or the consistency looks grainy, blend for another 10 seconds. Overblending doesn't hurt — you're past the point of oxidation damage that matters with greens.

Pour immediately into a glass. The drink is drinkable straightaway but will separate if left standing for more than five minutes, so serve at once. A thin layer of liquid will pool at the bottom; stir before the final sips.