Brown Butter Peach Shakes

We are a committed smoothie family, but every so often I find myself with a freezer full of ice cream leaving me nowhere to store the vodka. that needs using up... hence these indulgent shakes.

But the real reason for these shakes is my Dad's peaches.  My father planted a peach tree in his garden about 40 years ago.  It was a tiny little grafted weed when he planted it, on the left as you look out of the French windows at the back of the old house, between the cherry tree and the apple tree.  It's been loving tended by my Dad's strong hands all these years. It's been used and abused by his children and grandchildren. We've been crashing into it on our bikes, kicking footballs into it, colliding with it as we ran to catch a cricket ball, swinging from the branches, picking the infant fruit to piff at each other and generally taking it for granted for over four decades and it keeps giving us the most delicious fruit. My Dad's peaches were my mothers favourite fruit.  They are legendary and superb picked and eaten straight from the tree... but adding brown butter and ice cream isn't a bad option either.




Brown Butter Peach Shakes
slightly adapted from here
Makes 2

30g unsalted butter
2 tablespoons brown sugar
4 small or 2 large peaches cut into quarters
400ml vanilla ice cream
200ml cold milk
2 shortbread cookies (I used my Lemon Coconut Shortbread Cookies)
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon for sprinkling

Heat the butter in a frying pan over medium heat until it starts to go brown and smell nutty.  Add the sugar and peaches and cook until the peaches soften.  The time it takes will depend on what type of peach you're using and how ripe they are.  Mine only took 4 -5 minutes.  Remove from the heat and leave to cool completely.

Put the peaches and all the pan juices into a blender along with the ice cream and milk and blitz until smooth and thick.  Pour into two large glasses.

Crush the cookies until you have a rubble.  Sprinkle the top of the shakes with crumbled ccokies and sprinkle with cinnamon.