The weather has been mercilessly humid and warm of late and naturally a cold drink will feel like the best thing to have, especially after hot yoga on a hot day. Instead of soft drinks or any sugared packet drinks, fruit juice is a good idea since it is nutritious and is great when served cold!

One of my favourites is Avocado milkshake/ smoothie. Unless you are in Indonesia, you will have to pay around $2.50 – $3.50 for a cup at a hawker centre or even $5 at a high end food court (and it may not even taste good or use a whole avocado and with inferior other ingredients!) and that’s kind of absurd because it can be easily made at home.

The benefits of avocado need no introduction. It is one of the best food available from nature and should be included in daily life whenever possible.

You will need a blender, of course. A small hand blender would do so invest in one! It is way more affordable than a juicer so in a way smoothies at home are more achievable. It’ll make life a whole lot easier and save you a lot of money in the long run too.

Ingredients:

• 1 ripe avocado
• 1 cup unsweetened almond milk (or soy milk)
• 1.5 tbsp Gula Melaka Syrup
• Handful of ice

 

Method:

• Put avocado, milk and ice into the blender and blend.
• Pour into a glass and add gula meleka.

 

Firstly, the amount of milk or ice is up to you. For my blender, it is kind of lousy and cannot crush ice into small granules. Instead it melts all the ice but I prefer it like that anyway – a smooth consistency. Alternatively, cold water may work. As for the almond milk, it was chosen because I prefer to be non-dairy and the target taste is not that of milk anyway. I could only taste the avocado and Gula Melaka in the end so the milk used doesn’t really matter (and when you can’t taste it, why not just use the healthier option?). I like my milkshake/ smoothie to not be so thick, so I added more milk to dilute it eventually. The amount can be eyeballed and isn’t fixed.

Secondly, Gula Melaka is not the healthiest sweetener out there but at least it’s better than cane sugar, and it tastes heavenly. As the manufacturing process of Gula Melaka is generally less processed, some nutrients are still retained in the product, unlike cane sugar which basically has no minerals to speak of. Do use a good grade of Gula Melaka because unlike cane sugar, the taste can vary and you do not want to waste your calories on inferior tasting ones. I have also tried sweetening it with honey instead (got to blend it because honey wouldn’t mix in with the icy cold milkshake) and while it works to sweeten, it isn’t quite the same as Gula Melaka. Again, the amount is up to you but I need 1.5tbsp at least for the taste of the Gula Melaka to be brought out. Any less, I can’t taste it and it would be better off not having any at all.