Dec 21 2012

Homemade Eggnog

Posted by Erica Lea in Holidays, Step-by-Step Recipes

To me, eggnog is the iconic Christmas drink. When we were little, around Christmastime, Mom would carefully pour out mini glasses of the thick, wonderfully flavored beverage and cut it with a bit of milk. We savored what little we got from the small carton.

Now that I’ve learned to make it at home, I can enjoy it in much larger quantities. Which is a good thing, right? Right?!

“I would ask you to make eggnog more often, but then we would get fat,” Reuben informed me.

Let me show you how to make this scrumptious drink for yourself!

Here are the ingredients you’ll need: eggs (of course), sweetener of choice, salt, whole milk, vanilla extract, freshly grated nutmeg and heavy whipping cream.

Note: I made a half batch since it’s only the two of us.

Crack your eggs into a pot.

Add the sugar …

And salt …

And whisk it all up.

Sloooowly whisk in half of the milk.

I switched to a smaller pan so it’d be easier to stir.

Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture coats the back of a wooden spoon, about 25 minutes.

Now’s a good time to listen to music, flip through a favorite magazine, or fiddle with your smart device.

You can also check to see if the eggnog is finished cooking with an instant-read thermometer. It should be between 170 and 175° F. Do NOT boil.

Once it’s finished cooking, pour the eggnog into a heat-proof bowl through a fine-mesh strainer.

See all the thumpies the strainer saved me from?

Whisk in the vanilla extract …

Freshly grated nutmeg (I’ll forgive you if you don’t use fresh) …

And the remaining milk. Cover and let chill in the refrigerator until completely cool, about 3 hours.

Just before serving, beat the cream until soft peaks form. Beautiful, soft cream …

Gently fold the whipped cream into the eggnog with a wire whisk.

Serve with extra whipped cream, if desired, and a sprinkling of freshly grated nutmeg.

Recipe notes:

1. You can use whatever sweetener (within reason) you like to sweeten this drink. I have used maple syrup, granulated sugar and evaporated cane juice with good success.
2. If you like the flavor of rum in your eggnog, you can add a bit of rum extract (or real rum, if you don’t mind the alcohol).
3. I highly recommend using an instant read thermometer to gauge when your eggnog is done cooking. Just make sure you have it set to Fahrenheit—I once made scrambled eggnog because I accidentally switched the thermometer to Celsius.

Printable Recipe

Homemade Eggnog

by Erica Lea on December 21, 2010 in Drinks, Holiday

See post on Erica Lea’s site!

5.00 Mitt(s) 4 Rating(s) 4 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5

Description

An easy recipe for eggnog that does not include alcohol or uncooked eggs.

Ingredients

12 whole Large Eggs
1-½ cup Maple Syrup (or Granulated Sugar)
½ teaspoons Salt
2 quarts (8 Cups) Whole Milk
2 Tablespoons Vanilla Extract
1 teaspoon Freshly Grated Nutmeg + More For Garnish
2 cups Heavy Whipping Cream + More For Garnish

Preparation Instructions

1) In a heavy 4 quart saucepan, with the heat off, whisk the eggs, maple syrup, and salt until well blended. Gradually stir in half of the milk.

2) Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and coats the back of a spoon, about 25 minutes. (Mixture should be about 170 – 175 degrees F). Do not boil.

3) Pour custard into a large bowl. Stir in vanilla extract, 1 teaspoon of ground nutmeg and the remaining milk. Cover and refrigerate until well chilled, about 3 hours.

4) Just before serving, in a medium bowl, beat whipping cream until soft peaks form. With wire whisk, gently fold whipped cream into custard mixture. Serve with extra whipped cream on top and a sprinkle of freshly grated nutmeg.

Store in the refrigerator up to 3 days.

_______________________________________

Newly-married Erica Kastner shares her wonderful recipes and amazing food photography on her blog, Cooking for Seven. She also writes about crafts and posts more of her beautiful photography in her personal blog, EricaLea.com. There really isn’t much that this amazing young lady can’t do, and we’re thrilled she does some of it here.

Dec 14 2012

No-Knead Dinner Rolls

Posted by Erica Lea in Baking, Step-by-Step Recipes

Let’s face it. There’s just nothing like fresh, homemade bread. Sure, you can get some wonderful, artisan breads at local shops, but they can’t come close to magic of the smell and taste of home-baked bread pulled from the oven and spread with butter and jam (or honey).

But here’s the problem: With busy lives, especially around the holidays, there’s precious little time to spend agonizing over kneading and rise times. And so homemade bread is often neglected.

This recipe, brought to us by Terri, is about as low-fuss as yeast bread gets. All you have to do is mix everything in a large bowl, let it rise, form into buns, and bake once they’re puffy. Still skeptical about no-knead bread? Let me assure you, it is good. Like, really good: fluffy and flavorful and soft. Let me show you!

To begin, grab the few ingredients you’ll need: yeast, sugar, oil (I used olive, but if you don’t like the flavor, you could use melted butter or vegetable oil), salt, flour (I used part white, part wheat), butter, and water.

Pour some warm water into a large mixing bowl and sprinkle in the yeast and 1/4 teaspoon of sugar. You can gently stir it with a fork if you wish.

Let the yeast “activate” in the water (about 5 minutes). Then add the flour …

… wheat flour (if using), sugar, oil and salt.

Stir it all together.

If the dough is too wet, you can add more flour. The right texture is soft and sticky, but not soupy.

See that? That’s how it should look. Don’t stir too much! After all, these are no-knead.

Cover the dough and set aside to rise until doubled. This only took about and hour for me, but it all depends on how warm your house is.

Now, give that dough a punch!

Ahhh … melted butter.

Pour a little onto a rimmed baking sheet.

Get your hands in it and smear it around.

Now it’s time to make a mess! Sprinkle your work surface generously with flour.

Scoop your risen dough out onto your counter/table and sprinkle with some more flour.

Roll the dough out to about a 1/2-inch thickness.

Take a round cookie/biscuit cutter and stamp out circles of dough. You could get your circles closer together than mine.

Grab a circle of dough …

And stretch it out a bit.

Dunk half of it into the melted butter …

And fold it in half with the butter side up. Now you have a lovely little Parker House roll.

Place on your buttered baking sheet (buttered side up). Repeat with remaining dough, placing the buns close together.

Gather up your scraps and go again!

Cover the buns and let rise until nice and puffy. Aren’t they beautiful?

Bake at 375°F until lovely and golden brown. You can brush the tops of the buns with extra butter, if you wish.

Just look at how pillowy soft they are!

Recipe notes:

1. This dough can be refrigerated for up to a week. You can mix up a big batch and just pull off pieces of dough and bake them for fresh bread throughout the week!
2. You don’t have to make Parker House rolls from the dough. Terri suggests cinnamon rolls, pull-aparts and breadsticks.
3. These rolls reheat very well. Just pop them in a 350°F oven for 10 minutes.

Thanks so much to Terri for sharing these buttery rolls with us. She blogs over at That’s Some Good Cookin’, where she posts many more lip-smackin’ recipes.

Printable Recipe