Ditch The Blender And Use The Stand Mixer For A Copycat Dairy Queen Blizzard

How would you classify a Dairy Queen Blizzard? Is it a milkshake, or would you say it's more like the soft-serve version of Cold Stone Creamery's ice cream with mix-ins? We'd go with the latter interpretation, despite the item being served in a beverage-style container. If it was truly a drink, DQ would never have adopted that "upside-down or it's free" policy. While the McFlurry is another form of ice cream with mix-ins, the Blizzard has the advantage in that you don't need an app to find a DQ with a working ice cream machine. If the issue is that you don't live near a Dairy Queen at all, though, then you might want to try making a copycat version. You won't need too many ingredients for it, just ice cream and your chosen mix-in(s), and you also won't need a blender, either.

Lindsay D. Mattison, who developed our two-ingredient copycat Oreo Blizzard recipe, explains the reason why she doesn't use a blender for making it. As she tells us, "a blender ... would add heat and melt the ice cream, resulting in a more milkshake-like drink." Instead, she uses a stand mixer fitted with a paddle to incorporate the Oreo crumbs and aerate the vanilla ice cream, thus turning it into a DIY approximation of soft-serve. If you don't have a stand mixer, though, a hand mixer will also work to transform store-bought ice cream into soft-serve.

While our copycat recipe calls for vanilla ice cream and Oreos, the beauty of making your own Blizzard is that you can use any kind of ice cream and mix-ins that you like. If you're a diehard DQ fan, you might like to approximate some of the chain's most popular Blizzard flavors, and that is easily done. Use vanilla ice cream and a frozen strawberry-topped cheesecake to clone the Royal New York Cheesecake Blizzard, or go with chocolate ice cream and M&Ms to make an M&M's Milk Chocolate Candies Blizzard. With the latter, you could even one-up DQ by using flavored M&M's like peanut butter, fudge brownie, or caramel.

Don't stop there, though. Dairy Queen may be limited in its soft-serve flavors, but since our copycat recipe starts with standard supermarket ice cream, you have a wide range of options open to you. How about a pistachio Blizzard with real chopped pistachios? Or a piña colada one with coconut ice cream and chunks of fresh pineapple? You could even go all hipster-foodie and mix basil leaves and balsamic vinegar with strawberry ice cream (artisanal, of course) or doctor up French vanilla with roasted figs, honey, and crumbled goat cheese. Who knows? Maybe hipster Blizzards could be a thing and you could open up a food truck to sell them and launch the 2020s' hottest, coldest food trend.