Elisabeth and I are having guests over and the small shop we went to didn’t have eggnog so we decided to make our own.

I don’t know how deep this conspiracy goes, it could go all the way, but Dairyland has been lying to us! Soylent eggnog in the dairy section tastes NOTHING like real eggnog, and it wasn’t even that hard to make with the use of a few power tools. Two egg whites were added to a warm liquid and so probably didn’t get completely cooked all the way, but they got more cooked than sunnyside eggs and the yolks were completely cooked in the custard. I bought the eggs from the chicken lady yesterday so they couldn’t be fresher and did I mention the cup of rum? Not yet? There’s a lot of rum in it. Everything got a little bit of sugar. I had about 3/4 of a cup of powdered sugar Elisabeth made for her cookies by pulverizing table sugar so there wasn’t any cornstarch in it, but I think the starch, if anything, would make it just a little more creamy.

First, in stand mixer I whipped two egg whites with a bit of sugar and then, without cleaning the bowl I whipped up some cream. Maybe 1/2-3/4 of a cup? That got covered and put in our uninsulated mudroom. Then I went to work on the custard.

In my blender, I whipped up six eggs and the two yolks (waste not, want not. My blendtec went to town on it. I beat them on the batter setting three times so they were very thick. I added a bit of sugar and vanilla. While that was going on, I heated two cups of cream in with two tablespoons of mixed spices (cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, and nutmeg that I ground in a magic bullet. I should have doubled what I originally ground because I strained the spices out when I strained the finished product, so just pretend I ground enough to make 4 tbs of ground everything)

When the cream was just coming to a boil, I added the eggs to a large measuring cup and scooped in the cream a ladle at a time, beating the crap out of the eggs. This is called tempering, but also, making sure you don’t make sweet scrambled eggs. When all he hot liquid went into the eggs, everything went back into the pot and I cooked it until it hit 160.

I heated up 2 cups of whole milk in the microwave, dumped that into the pot with *cough* 1 cup of lemonhart rum and strained it. Then I mixed the egg whites and cream with a tablespoon of more spices to replace what got strained out of the eggs and the whole thing is cooling down in the fridge.

It tastes rich, spicy and alcoholic while being velvetty on the tongue. It seems like a lot of work, and probably was, but the three steps, whipping the egg whites and cream, making the custard, straining and adding everything else really didn’t take all that long, and there was very little actual work. The most effort was making the custard. Obviously it can’t be enjoyed as much as even the whole fat eggnog from the store, but tastes amazing.