A fluffy taste of christmas
Starting with Thanksgiving and leading up to Christmas, this time of the year is certainly the most tempting time in terms of indulgence and enjoying the many, many, maaaaany tasty seasonal treats on offer. One of them is eggnog – whether you prefer it with or without alcohol. Since I love eggnog, I experimented with making it a little bit healthier by replacing the biggest culprits contributing to its naughtiness (the refined sugar and cream) without compromising on taste. Meaning you end up with only half of the calories of classic eggnog. Also, check out my recipe for chocolate and nut cookies without flour if you want to enjoy a few healthy cookies alongside your eggnog.
Servings: 4 cups or 20 shots * Calories per serving: 189 kcal (cup)/ 35 kcal (shot) * Preparation time: 30 min * Start to finish: 1 hs 30 min (incl. cooling time before serving)
Ingredients
- 5 fresh egg yolks
- 3 cups of almond milk
- 5 tablespoons of honey
- 1 teaspoon of nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla aroma
- Optional: 1/2 a cup of rum
Start by separating the eggs – place the yolks in a large bowl and set aside the whites. Add the almond milk and honey and whisk everything with a hand mixer for 2 to 3 minutes or until well-blended. By using almond milk, which is inherently fairly sweet, this recipe needs less honey (the replacement of the sugar) to sweeten it. Plus, honey has one great advantage over sugar due to its liquid composition, in that it far better infuses the drink than granulated sugar ever could, hence you generally end up needing less honey than sugar to begin with.
Pour the content of the bowl into a pot, then add the nutmeg and cinnamon, as well as the vanilla, and bring it to a medium heat while stirring. Continue to stir for 15 minutes. Make sure that the temperature is on the lower end of medium to avoid it boiling or getting too hot. Throughout this process, you must also ensure you avoid any bacteria development stemming from the egg yolks.
Optional: After 15 minutes, turn off the heat, let it sit for up to 5 minutes, then add the rum. Thereby you ensure that the alcohol doesn’t vaporize.
Fill a bottle with the eggnog and place it in the fridge to cool for an hour before consumption. This also allows the spices to further penetrate it and thus increases the taste experience.
Since eggnog is made with eggs (albeit they are not raw), make sure to always store it in the fridge and to consume it within 3 to 4 days. I also strongly recommend that you only use fresh eggs. Thereby you make sure that you don’t accidentally shorten the lifespan of your eggnog.
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