The Best Eggnog Three Ways | An Adventures in Cooking Christmas

 

We did it because Carey and I had been talking about holiday foods on my podcast, and the subject of eggnog had come up. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had homemade eggnog, and Carey started gushing about how tasty it is when it’s homemade, and how intrigued she was by Jeffrey Morgenthaler’s recipe for eggnog that involved tequila. So, being very diligent in my research, I went to Morgenthaler’s bar (Clyde Common) and ordered his classic eggnog. It was buttery, spiced, and oddly enough, I couldn’t detect the tequila in it at all, and would have guessed some sort of amaretto flavor was involved because of how buttery and nutty the flavor was. As it turns out, the key to that incredibly nutty amazing flavor is using freshly ground nutmeg. Do not use the pre-ground stuff for your homemade eggnog, trust me when I say that it is worth the extra effort to buy whole nutmeg and grate them fresh for your drink. The flavor difference is kiiiinda insane when it comes to making or breaking your eggnog recipe.

Above photo by Christiann Koepke

The ratio of eggs to milk and cream was interesting, too. I found some recipes that just called for yolks, and some that called for both yolks and whites. I personally like the recipes that call for both because I really like the silky mouthfeel that egg whites add to the texture of the drink. We found that four eggs to 16 ounces of whole milk and 8 ounces of cream was the perfect ratio. I tried Morgenthaler’s original eggnog recipe with 12 ounces of whole milk to 8 ounces of heavy cream and it was just a little too rich for me, but you are totally welcome to change up the ratio of cream to milk a bit depending on how rich you want it, as long as the total ounces of the two combined add up to 24 ounces in each of the recipes below (with more cream and less milk meaning a richer overall drink, and vice versa).

 

 

I also ribboned the egg yolks for each of the eggnogs below. Ribboning egg yolks basically means that you whisk together the yolks and some sort of sugar or sweetener until the eggs turn pale yellow and flow in a smooth and steady stream (aka a ribbon) down from the whisk when you lift it out of the bowl. They turn this very pale white-ish yellow color because of the air that you’ve incorporated into them, and the reason why you do this is to make a more airy, silky texture, and also to ensure that the sugar is completely dissolved and you don’t get any granular sugar bits in your ‘nog. We experimented with different sweeteners (sugar, honey, and maple to be precise) and found that none worked better than others, they were all equally tasty in the eggnog. We tried to keep the sweetener levels in the below drinks at a medium level of sweetness, so if you prefer your eggnog more or less sweet you can feel free to tweak the sweetener amounts to taste.

 

Once the yolks were ribboned, we then emptied everything else in the recipe (egg whites, alcohol, spices, sweetener, milk, and cream) along with the ribboned egg yolks into a blender and blended it at medium speed for about 30 seconds until it was totally smooth. This also helped to beat air into the cream and egg whites, and left us with a little layer of bubbly froth on top. Once you pour it out of the blender, you can stir this froth layer back in to settle it a bit. The result of using the blender along with the pre-ribboning of the egg yolks was an incredibly silky, thick, velvety, and smooth eggnog. The texture was absolutely perfect, and the flavor of each one was incredible. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did, and I wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Above photo by Christiann Koepke