Recently I’ve heard that if you’ve never had eggnog from scratch, then you’ve never had real eggnog.
As someone who’s only ever had eggnog from my local grocery store, I was intrigued to try out making homemade eggnog.
To be honest, making eggnog from scratch actually wasn’t that hard after all. It just requires a couple of new techniques to make, if you are like me and have never made a ton of big batch classic holiday drinks.
In this post, I’m gonna show you guys how to make both a big batch of eggnog and a cocktail version of eggnog meant for one.
So let’s jump on into how to make eggnog from scratch!
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Ingredients for the big batch of eggnog
How to make eggnog from scratch
Ingredients for the big batch of eggnog
These are the ingredients you will need to make a big batch of eggnog.
- 6 egg yolks
- Sugar
- Holiday spices: cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger; you can use either pre-ground spices or the fresh ingredients. I used mostly fresh ingredients for my recipe. If using pre-ground spices you can skip the first step in the recipe of toasting the spices.
- Vanilla: I used Trader Joe’s bourbon vanilla beans. You can also use vanilla extract.
- Whole milk
- Heavy cream
- Brandy or rum (optional): brandy & rum are the most commonly used spirits in eggnog. You can honestly use any kind of spirit you want, but I highly suggest that you used some type of aged spirit because it will add more flavor characteristics.
how to make eggnog from scratch
Prepping our mixtures
To start our eggnog, we will be prepping our ingredients in a pot and bowl
In a pot, add a broken cinnamon stick, 5-6 cloves, diced ginger, and a whole freshly grated nutmeg.
Turn the heat on medium to toast the spices. Stir the spices.
Once you smell the aromatic fragrance of the spices, add 3 cups whole milk. Keep the temperature on a medium heat, but do not boil.
In a separate bowl, add in 6 egg yolks and whisk. It will be most easy to use an electric mixer if you have it.
As you are whisking, pour I cup sugar into the egg yolks a little bit at a time. This way, the egg yolks and sugar fully incorporate evenly.
The end result color should be a light yellow.
Tempering the eggs
Next, we are going to temper our egg yolk/sugar mixture.
Essentially this technique is used to slowly bring the temperature of the egg/sugar mixture up to the same temperature as the whole milk on the pot.
If we don’t temper our eggs and pour them straight into the warm milk, it may result in the eggs cooking too quickly almost like scrambled eggs, which we don’t want!
Once the whole milk in the pot is quite warm, using a ladle, pour in one spoonful of milk into egg/sugar mixture. Then immediately whisk the milk into the eggs.
Repeat this process of spooning milk in the egg/sugar mixture and whisking.
When egg/sugar/milk mixture is warm enough, pour all of it into the pot with the rest of the whole milk.
Cut a vanilla bean pod in half. Scoop out the vanilla seeds and add them into the pot. I also added the vanilla bean pod because I wanted extra vanilla flavor.
Turn the heat on low and whisk for 10-15 minutes until thickened. Make sure to not let this boil.
Eggnog Finishing touches
Then, add 1/2-1 cup rum (according to your preference) and 1 1/2 cup heavy cream. Stir to combine.
Using a utensil, fish out the cinnamon stick, vanilla bean pod, cloves, and ginger.
If you are using pre-ground spices, add them in now. 1 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/4 tsp ground cloves, 1 tbsp ginger and, 1 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg.
Place the mixture in an ice bath to let the eggnog cool down in temperature. You don’t want to cook off too much of the alcohol 😉.
Whisk the eggnog to make sure the whole mixture is getting cooled down in the ice bath.
And that’s pretty much it for how to make egg nog from scratch.
This eggnog will fit a 750ml bottle for storing and a enough leftover eggnog to fill 2 glasses, that way you can test it for ✨ quality control ✨
This eggnog should last for 2-4 days. The more alcohol you add the longer amount of days it should last.
When you are ready to serve, garnish the top of the eggnog with plenty of grated nutmeg and enjoy!
Eggnog recipe for one
This is how to make a single cocktail version of eggnog!
In a shaking tin
1 whole egg
1/2 oz high proof rum
1 oz gingerbread syrup (watch how to make gingerbread syrup here)
1 1/2 oz aged rum
1 1/2 oz Heavy cream
Dry shake
Add Ice and shake
Strain into a cocktail glass of your choice
Garnish with plenty of nutmeg
Cheers and Happy Holidays!