The thing is, I'm pretty sure a traditional Christmas egg nog is supposed to have grog in it, and the Edmonds one doesn't - it's just egg and sugar, beaten into milk and garnished with nutmeg. I turned to Google to substantiate this theory, and sure enough, every recipe I found had brandy, rum, bourbon or all the above. They also tended to include spices - cloves, cinnamon etc, and most had cream as well as milk.I normally drink low-fat milk, but since this is clearly meant to be a creamy drink, I got a small carton of blue to make my egg nog with. That'd be creamy enough for me: blue milk tastes like cream when you're used to green or yellow!
The actual process is very simple: you use a blender or beater to combine an egg with milk and sugar. Pour into a glass and sprinkle nutmeg over - done. The resulting drink is sort of a sweet, slightly thickened milkshake. It's nice, but there's nothing Christmassy about this recipe.
I drank about half of it, then decided to experiment. I poured the remaining egg nog back into the jug and sloshed in a bit of rum and a dash of brandy. Turning to my spice racks, I added ground cloves, ginger and cinnamon, then beat it all up again.I don't know how closely my experimental egg nog approximated the traditional kind, but it certainly had a warming, spicy Christmas flavour once I'd completed my additions. My guess is that the standard Edmonds egg nog recipe is not really meant to be a Christmas drink, but you can use it as a base for a few Christmassy additions. After all, who'd think of drinking egg nog at any other time of year?
Definitely sounds better with the spice and grog additions. I see eggnog in the supermarket here, and I keep meaning to give it a try, but haven't committed yet. Perhaps I'll go get some and give it a try :)
ReplyDeleteActually, now that I think about it, if they're selling it in the supermarket here, it's CLEARLY not got any alcohol in it. Perhaps I'll have to "spice" it up a bit myself... haha
Bought eggnog? Cop-out! Among the recipes I Googled were many references to disgusting "store-bought" eggnog. Find yourself a recipe and make your own! That way you can "spice it up" as much as you want ;)
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