We put these fast-food milkshakes to the test

Tag : Coffee Candy

By the numbers: Split these with a few friends: The banana pudding shake has 1,060calories, and the peanut butter cup has 1,010. A 20-ounce cup is$2.79.

The Frosty is going through another kind of shake-up at Wendy's.What was once just a frozen chocolate dessert, then expanded to avanilla flavor and then to candy mix-ins, is also now a shake. 

We tried the new Frosty Shake in Strawberry and Vanilla Bean. Andthe minute the clerk started pouring the bright red strawberryflavoring into a cup of shake base, we got a bad feeling. Sureenough, it tasted harsh and artificial. The sauce does contain somereal strawberries, according to nutritional information on theWendy's Web site, but doesn't taste like many made it into thefinal product. The Vanilla Bean, also supplemented with a flavoringsyrup, was only slightly better.

Chick-fil-A's summer shake flavor is Coffee Caramel, a supersweetconcoction that's around through early August. The flavor issimilar to Quik-Trip's Frozen Cappuccino, creamy with a mild coffeeflavor.

It's pleasant enough at first, but the highly sweetened drink wearsout its welcome after a few sips. And with a 19-ounce shake theonly available size, that leaves a lot of drink still to slurp.

By the numbers: One serving is 810 calories, another argument for splitting withtwo other coffee lovers. $2.89.