Creamy Egg Nog

My company is having its holiday party next week, complete with snowflake decorations, a white elephant gift exchange, and an ugly sweater contest. It’s strange to me that we’re doing this after Christmas, though of course, we’re carefully avoiding mention of specific holidays or adherence to actual holiday dates. But we are, so I guess it shouldn’t seem too strange that I’m posting about egg nog in January.

Egg nog. Hmm. What are my thoughts about egg nog? Early memories of a weird, thick liquid coming from a carton in elementary school classrooms during Christmas parties. Not being a huge fan, but acting as though I loved it because someone had told me that it’s an adult drink and like every other eight-year-old, I wanted to be grown-up, too.

And that’s about it. I hadn’t had it in years, except for a small glass at a friend’s house several years ago. That friend whipped it up herself and I was intrigued, though admittedly distracted by a flurry of fur as our dogs played. I considered making some last Christmas, but when I had a friend over, she visibly shuddered when I mentioned egg nog. I later asked hubby, and he shrugged disinterestedly. So I didn’t make it.

About a month before Christmas, this message appeared on my facebook wall, courtesy of my big brother:

I want you to find a recipe for yummy eggnog - my friend doesn't share his family recipe, so we have to find/make our own. I know that milk and booze goes into his recipe, but that is all I know. Only then will you be a Jedi.

I responded, of course, “Challenge accepted.”

Anyway, again, I put off making the egg nog. It’s not that I didn’t want to, but I just had no one to drink it with. Finally, I decided to just make it for myself and maybe sneak a little extra booze in it for kicks.

I used the allrecipes app on my new kindle fire to call up the recipe that I’d saved ages ago. See how pretty it is?

It said to beat the egg yolks until creamy. I’d never separated eggs and used the yolks before.

Add sweetened condensed milk, sugar, vanilla

And milk.

Then beat the egg whites separately until they’re stiff.

If you’re like me, make a weird conclusion that you should not have used skim milk, and that adding some heavy cream will thicken it up. But add it to the egg whites because you have some weird idea about the cream also stiffening up.

None of it really stiffened up. Not the greatest idea. Oh well.

Add this to the milk/ yolk mixture, then add the booze.

Pour it into a glass and sprinkle with ground nutmeg. Voila!

That day, it didn’t taste the way I expected egg nog to taste. When I came back to it the next day, though, it was perfect.

It kept well, without separating or anything.

And it wasn’t overly thick, though I wouldn’t have minded if it was thicker.

If you don’t think it’s weird to drink egg nog after Christmas (or to drink raw eggs in general), give it a try.

And let me know how it goes.