Eggnog Recipes

Eggnog may not be a balanced diet, but I like it as a seasonal nutritional supplement (lots of calories!).

What is the right way (or best way) to prepare eggnog? To compare recipes, I've considered two criteria, composition and method. Composition comparison takes the list of ingredients and tabulates them side by side. To ease the comparison, recipes are scaled; one might scale them to a particular total fluid volume, a particular amount of alcohol (I'm looking at real eggnog here, not nutmeg flavored crême anglaise) or, as here, per four eggs. The method variations mainly concern whipping and marinating.

Ingredient Variations

Out of Kentucky Kitchens has two recipes, the one included below (scaled down from twelve eggs) and a “less rich” one.

Time-Life “American Cooking: Southern Style” recipe is for twelve eggs, so I've divided it by three, approximately. It calls for “a fifth (about 26 ounces) of blended whiskey or bourbon plus 1.5 cups dark Jamaica rum”, which I reckon is about (70 cl)/3 and 120 cl.

Old Mr. Boston has several recipes, mostly calling for “Prepared Dairy Eggnog” to which one adds spirits. The one I've used for this comparison is the “Christmas Yule Eggnog”, made from basic ingredients.

In the table, I've placed them in increasing order on spirits/egg; one can also see this as decreasing amount of egg per shot of spirits, a standard 1.5 fl. oz. shot being about 45 ml. My recipe is pretty close to an egg per shot, which could be easily achieved by reducing the Bourbon by the amount of rum. The “Dairy fluid s/t” comprises milk + unwhipped cream, since Alton Brown and Mr. Boston don't whip their cream. I suppose it is not surprising that Mr Boston puts nearly twice as much booze as the next recipe, a bit over triple what I put. I think the Mr. Boston (and mine) proportion of rum is about right (not too much), but if you use really good bourbon you might not need/want the rum at all.

I reckon I put too much sugar in mine: that is the equivalent of 8 teaspoons per (egg+shot) serving! So this year I reduced it to 2 Tb per serving (still quite a lot), which is 120 ml for 4 eggs, and will try with even less next year.

Ingredients A. Brown Mine since 1973 del Mar Sacasa
via NPR
Marion
Green1)
Time-Life
Southern
Mr. Boston
Egg yolks 4 4 4 4 4 4
Sugar 95 ml 150 ml 60 ml 200 ml 40 ml 300 ml 2)
Dark brown sugar -0- -0- 30 ml -0- -0- -0-
Brandy -0- -0- 125 ml -0- -0- -0-
Bourbon 90 ml 180 ml -0- 300 ml 3) 230 ml 600 ml
Dark Rum -0- 15 ml 125 ml -0- 120 ml 60 ml
Vanilla extract -0- -0- 7 ml4) -0- -0- -0-
Egg whites 4 4 4 4 5) 4 4
Whipped Cream6) -0- 250 ml -0- 300 ml 7) 300 ml -0-
Fluid Cream 500 ml -0- 125 ml -0- -0- 300 ml
Milk 250 ml -0- 125 ml -0- 160 ml 300 ml
Spirits s/t 90 ml 195 ml 250 ml 300 ml 350 ml 660 ml
Dairy fluid s/t 750 ml -0- 250 ml -0- 160 ml 600 ml
Spirits/egg 23 ml 49 ml 62 ml 75 ml 87 ml 165 ml
Egg / 45 ml spirits 2 0.92 0.7 0.6 0.52 0.27

Method Variations

Yolk "Marinating"

Time-Life and I beat the egg yolks with the sugar, add the spirits (and, T-L adds milk) and then refrigerate for a couple of hours or more. In theory, this gives the spirits time to “cook” the yolks, reducing the “eggy” taste. Alton Brown skips this step. Kentucky Kitchens skips it, but adds the bourbon very slowly while beating the yolk-sugar froth. Mr. Boston mixes everything together, refrigerates overnight, then mixes some more.

Cream Whipping and Folding

Time-Life beats the cream and egg whites (separately, of course) then folds the cream into the egg whites before folding the resulting foam into the egg yolk mixture. On my recipe card (1973) I note to whip separately the egg whites and cream, then fold the cream into the yolk mixture, followed by folding in the egg whites. Kentucky Kitchens does as I do (if they add the whites at all!) Alton Brown does not whip the cream.

1) “Out of Kentucky Kitchens”
2) 2/3 lb.
3) , 7) 1/3 qt
4) 1/2 Tb
5) optional
6) volume before whipping
 
recipes/eggnog.txt · Dernière modification: 2013/12/28 09:21 par suitable
 
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