Some years ago Cadbury produced a range of shakeable milkshakes that you bought in the supermarket and at milk bars and the like, based on their chocolate bars. There was a chocolate one, a Crunchie one and I seem to recall a Cherry Ripe one.
The instructions on the cartons were “shake until you can’t hear any liquid sounds” or something to that effect. At the end you had a milkshake. Frothy and fantastic.
They disappeared after a while, likely some time ago.
However there still exits a product that does the same thing.
The SupaShake (or possibly Supa Shake), produced by Fonterra Brands (Australia). I’m occasionally partial to their Choc Honeycomb flavour.
Being Chocolate and Honeycomb flavour it does have a familiarity with Crunchie and those other honeycomb-based products.
Looking at the ingredients list was probably a mistake, and looking at the ingredients list whilst writing up this little musing on the drink, with a web browser in front of me was doubly a mistake.
First up there’s low fat milk and sugar. These I expected. It’s a sweet milk drink.
Next glucose syrup (from maize), which according to Wikipedia is used in commercially prepared foods as a sweetener, a thickener and a humectant (something which keeps moisture in food keeping it fresh. Probably not relevant to wet things.)
Now there’s the things only listed by numbers. Four vegetable gums; 460, 412, 466, 407.
The use of four different vegetable gums I imagine bring the super to the SupaShake.
460 is cellulose.
412 is Guar gum. It’s from guar beans. It has eight times the water thickening potency as cornflour, which itself is pretty fantastic if anyone’s made gravy or thickened a casserole or sauce with cornflour it can turn liquid in thick sauce very quickly.
466 is carboxymethyl cellulose it’s also cellulose, like 460. It’s a thickener and a stabiliser. Used in stuff like ice cream. Also things like toothpaste and personal lubricant, which is interesting.
407 is Carrageenan. It’s seaweed. It’s used as a vegetarian and vegan alternative to gelatin. It’s also used in a lot of things that need a consistent structure, texture or gelatinous structure. It’s used in ice creams, milk shakes, pâtés, soy milks, toothpaste, personal lubricant some diet drinks and various other things.
Next ingredient is chocolate a whole 0.3%, though this contains soy lecithin. This seems to be there to make the chocolate more soluble and combine with the milk more easily.
Next, “flavours”, and it doesn’t explain any further than that. It’s something I hate on ingredients lists, the other one which is just as bad and unhelpful is “spices”. No explanation further than those incredibly vague statements that these products might contain “flavours” or “spices”, just that, a vague statement.
Now onto the cocoa powder, 0.1% of it.
Finally two colours 110 and 102.
These ones I wish I hadn’t looked up.
110 is also known as Sunset Yellow or Orange Yellow. It’s manufactured from aromatic hydrocarbons from petroleum, according to Wikipedia.
It’s also banned in Norway and Finland.
Made from petrol. Marvellous.
102 is Tartrazine. Wikipedia says it’s a “synthetic organic chemical”, but other sources say it’s also a petroleum based colouring. Or coal tar.
It’s also banned in Norway and Austria.
Now having read all the ingredients and what exactly the numbers of the colours mean, I’m not sure if I want to drink this chocolate and honeycomb flavoured drink again. I still have one in the fridge though, it’s got a longer shelf life than regular milk. So I don’t need to make a decision as to what to do with it too soon.