McDonald's-Style Eggnog Shake

This eggnog shake is thick and fluffy, with a spiced flavor that screams happy holidays.

By
Stella Parks
Stella Parks
Stella Parks
Editor Emeritus
Stella Parks is a CIA-trained baking nerd and pastry wizard, dubbed one of America's Best New Pastry Chefs by Food & Wine. She was the pastry editor at Serious Eats from 2016 to 2019.
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Updated January 08, 2025
A DIY McDonald's egg nog milkshake, topped with whipped cream and a maraschino cherry in a glass holiday cup, on a red background.

Serious Eats / Sarah Jane Sanders

Why It Works

  • Chopped nutmeg, cinnamon, and Frangelico give the shake a subtly spiced and nutty flavor.
  • Folding a partially churned ice cream base into whipped cream gives the shake a perfectly fluffy texture that's still drinkable through a straw.

When, exactly, did the holidays come unmoored? Halloween starts encroaching when September still hasn't quite shed her hot days and Thanksgiving pilgrims pop up just as we've started to put a dent in our Trick or Treat stash. Saint Nick used to hold off 'til the night before Christmas but now his reindeer come prancing out long before Tom Turkey, with McDonald's Eggnog shake in tow.

Maybe it's the PTSD (that's Post Thanksgiving Sobriety Disinclination) talking, but any dessert that can accommodate a few ounces bourbon seems like the very definition of Happy Holidays to me. Not that McDonald's Egg Nog shake is alcoholic. Just that, well, it should be. And hey, at least I had the decency to wait until December actually rolled around to get my Christmas Spirit on.

While eggnog recipes vary widely from household to household and formulas for the store-bought variety shift by brand and region, Ronald McDonald's miracle of factory-formulated holiday cheer tastes the same from coast to coast. None can say when Mickey D's first debuted their eggnog shake. In Politically Correct Holiday Stories for an Enlightened Yuletide, published in 1995, James Garner suggests someone "be force-fed 100 McDonald's eggnog shakes" as a punishment for a crime beyond the scope of my Google Books preview. For it to have gained enough notoriety to constitute a known threat, one must assume a debut no later than, say, 1994.

In my memory, the eggnog shake looked like any other shake, but in a paper cup printed with holiday designs. Today's version has been McCafe'd within an inch of its life, encased in a clear, Starbuckian vessel. It's capped with a thick head of "whipped cream" and a maraschino cherry glowing brightly enough to put Rudolph outta business. According to the McDonald website, it contains no fewer than thirteen ingredients. To be clear, I'm talking about the cherry on top, not the shake itself.

Meanwhile, it takes no fewer than sixteen ingredients to make the whipped topping (shockingly, cream among them). Which brings us to 29 assorted sugars, preservatives, stabilizers, flavorings and colorants and we haven't even addressed what goes into the shake itself. Oh no, friends. McDonald's won't tell you what happens there, other than to hint that the eggnog shake may threaten those allergic to eggs.

To develop an eggnog shake of my own (with fewer ingredients than you'd find in a McDonald's cherry), I started with my Dairy Queen Blizzard recipe. Yes, I know. The sacrilege. Next, I doubled the yolks to put the egg into the 'nog. But spicing it proved a little trickier; straight up nutmeg tasted too simple compared to the real thing.

The McDonald's shake does taste primarily of nutmeg, but with a complicated, (chemical?) nuance of miscellaneous holiday spice. Complicated in that reverse-engineered-to-taste-like-plain-old-nutmeg sort of way. To approach this at home, I used chopped rather than ground or grated nutmeg. This yields a gentle nutmeg flavor which I further rounded out by briefly steeping cinnamon into the dairy. Finally, a shot of Frangelico adds that vaguely nutty nuance I think a McDonald's shake must absorb from the paper cups.

This base gets half churned in an ice cream maker to thicken it, then folded into whipped cream, for a spot-on McShake texture: slightly fluffy and with more body than melted ice cream, but thin enough to suck up a straw. The flavor screams Happy Holidays with or without a shot of something stronger mixed in at the end.

I'm loving it.

December 2011

Recipe Details

McDonald's-Style Eggnog Shake

Prep 0 mins
Cook 15 mins
Steeping, Chilling, and Churning Time 7 hrs 15 mins
Total 7 hrs 30 mins
Makes 4 shakes
Cook Mode (Keep screen awake)

Ingredients

  • 12 fluid ounces whole milk (355ml; 1 1/2 cups)

  • 8 fluid ounces heavy cream (240ml; 1 cup)

  • 1 Tahitian vanilla bean, split and scraped; seeds reserved

  • One 3-inch cinnamon stick

  • 3 whole nutmeg, roughly chopped

  • 3 ounces (85g) egg yolks (from about 5 large eggs)

  • 7 ounces granulated sugar (198g; about 1 cup)

  • 3/4 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt; for table salt, use half as much by volume

  • 2 ounces Frangelico (see notes)

For the Whipped Cream Mix-In/Topping:

  • 12 fluid ounces whipped cream (355ml; 1 1/2 cups)

  • 2 ounces light brown sugar (56g; about 1/4 cup)

  • 4 maraschino cherries (optional)

Directions

  1. Prepare Shake Base: In a medium pot, bring milk and cream to a simmer together with vanilla bean, cinnamon and nutmeg. When mixture begins to simmer, remove from heat and cover with a lid. Steep for one hour.

  2. Meanwhile, place egg yolks in a medium bowl. Add granulated sugar gradually, whisking to incorporate. (It's a lot of sugar, so don't dump it in all at once or it will be difficult to incorporate.) Whisk in salt.

  3. In a large bowl, set up an ice bath by partially filling it with a combination of cold water and ice; set aside.

  4. Return dairy to a simmer over medium heat, using a spatula to scrape out heavily flavored cream from inside vanilla pod. Remove vanilla bean and spices; discard.

  5. Whisk hot cream into egg yolks, one ladle at a time, until egg mixture is quite warm. Whisk egg mixture into pot of cream. Reduce heat to medium low, using a flexible spatula to stir and scrape the bottom and sides of the pot constantly to prevent curdling.

  6. Cook until mixture registers 145ºF (63ºC) on an instant-read thermometer. Remove from heat immediately and, using a fine-mesh sieve, strain mixture into a large bowl. Stir in Frangelico and vanilla extract. Set bowl in prepared ice bath and let cool, about 30 minutes. Remove mixture from ice bath and refrigerate, covered, until thoroughly chilled; about 6 hours.

  7. When ready, process chilled ice cream base in ice cream maker just until it begins to thicken. Remember, a proper milkshake is made by blending ice cream with milk; we're cutting straight to the chase by just churning until the base takes on a shake-like texture. Exactly how long this takes will vary from maker to maker, but in my machine that's about 15 minutes.

  8. To Finish the Shake: While the shake base is churning, combine brown sugar and whipped cream in a medium bowl. Using a hand or stand mixer, whip cream and brown sugar mixture on medium speed until cream holds stiff peaks, 2 to 3 minutes. Use a rubber spatula to transfer about 4 ounces (113g) to a pastry bag fitted with a large star tip. Set aside.


  9. Place remaining 8 ounces (226g) whipped cream in a large bowl. Shut off ice cream maker and pour or scoop thickened base and additional alcohol, if using, into bowl of whipped cream. (See notes.) Using a flexible spatula, fold thickened base into whipped cream to combine.

  10. Pour shake into 4 glasses and, using prepared piping bag, top each with a swirl of whipped cream. Garnish each glass with a maraschino cherry, if desired.

Special Equipment

Ice cream maker, mixer, pastry bag, large star tip

Notes

Two ounces of Frangelico split four ways isn't enough booze to get the party started, if you know what I mean. At any rate, I didn't include it for for its alcohol, but for its slightly nutty flavor that matches the odd aftertaste found in McDonald's Egg Nog shake. If you don't consume alcohol, replace it with an extra two ounces of milk plus 1/4 teaspoon almond extract; it'll get the job done.

If you do consume alcohol, feel free to mix in a shot or two of your favorite holiday spirit along with the whipped cream at the end. Add it earlier and you'll prevent the shake from thickening in the ice cream maker.

All measurements are in weights, as volume measures can be very imprecise. I strongly recommend using a scale for all pastry projects.

Read More

Nutrition Facts (per serving)
3444Calories
197gFat
366gCarbs
43gProtein
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Nutrition Facts
Amount per serving
Calories3444
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 197g253%
Saturated Fat 118g588%
Cholesterol 1487mg496%
Sodium 1900mg83%
Total Carbohydrate 366g133%
Dietary Fiber 2g7%
Total Sugars 339g
Protein 43g
Vitamin C 4mg19%
Calcium 1099mg85%
Iron 4mg21%
Potassium 1491mg32%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.
(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)

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