Eggnog is one of my favourite Christmas drinks. I taught myself how to make it last year, it was something that I had always wanted to try but it always seemed really technical and… would I end up with some grim scrambled egg fare? Would I waste a load of stuff and just spend ages doing a bad job? Did I REALLY need a thermometer?! Anyway, I used a few different recipes and came up with THIS. I make two versions – one non-alcoholic one, which the kids can drink (or if I fancy it in the morning in my coffee, whenever without the booze) and then a boozy one! I am going to go large here: I like it better than Baileys. I said what I said.
So, here we go:
Homemade Eggnog Recipe
You will need:
- 1 cup double (heavy) cream
- 2 cups whole milk
- 6 egg yolks (use the egg whites for an omlette!)
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla paste
- 2 sticks cinnamon
- pinch salt
- pinch nutmeg
Put your cream, milk, salt, vanilla and cinnamon sticks in a pan and heat to a gentle simmer. Take off the heat and set aside to cool and allow to steep. MUM HACK: I usually speed up the cooling by putting my pan in a sink of cold water. The water should only come half way up the sides of the pan so it doesn’t affect the contents of the pan, but you will find it cools things down SO much faster.
Whilst that is cooling, whisk the egg yolks and sugar together – you are looking for a light cream colour and ribbons when you lift the whisk, usually 5-10 mins.
Now the milk mixture is cooled to warm, slowly start to add it to your egg mixture. You really want to add the milk gently and keep whisking – if it’s too hot, you will end up with a really nasty scrambled egg mixture that even the dog won’t touch. You want to keep adding until you have blended all of the egg mix into the cream. Place back on the heat once blended and keep stirring as this heats until you get a slight thickening. A lot of recipes call for a sugar thermometer that heats to 140C but honestly, I can’t be bothered and I have never needed it! I heat until I have a mixture that is a similar thickness to Baileys!
Set aside and allow to go completely cold. Strain and bottle. Voila! You now have non-alcoholic Eggnog. If you made it a little thick, add some more milk. To take this to alcoholic eggnog, you can add 1 cup of brandy, rum or whiskey. You can try it with other boozes if you like too!
A few things – always refrigerate, without the booze you really need to consume within 2 days max, with the booze you have a nice long life scan of a couple of weeks. It’s lush in coffee and hot chocolate too!
