My Eggnog Will Knock You Out

I have a suggestion.  If you're going to drink eggnog, you should do it right.  Homemade eggnog.  Heavily spiked.  Which is why I use the below recipe:

Ingredients:
6 large eggs, separated
1 1/4 cup superfine sugar
1 cup dark rum
1 cup brandy
1/3 cup bourbon
1/2 quart heavy cream
1 quart milk
1 pint vanilla ice cream
nutmeg

In a large bowl, using a hand-held mixer at high speed, beat egg yolks and sugar until thick.  Beat in rum, brandy, bourbon and then the cream and milk.

In another large bowl (and really, these bowls need to be giant if you're doubling the recipe), using a hand-held mixer at high speed using clean beaters, beat egg whites until soft peaks form.

Fold the egg whites into the eggnog.  Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate somewhere between 4 hours and overnight.

Transfer the eggnog to a punch bowl (or serving container of your choice).  Use scissors to cut the container away from the pint of ice cream.  This keeps the ice intact.  I prefer vanilla bean over french vanilla for this recipe.  Use the ice cream as "ice" for keeping the eggnog cold.  As it melts the eggnog will get creamier rather than watery.  Sprinkle nutmeg (fresh ground if you have it) on top.  Serve throughout the evening.

A few tips:

You can vary the cream/milk ratio to your desired creaminess.  The recipe can handle up to 1 1/2 quarts of heavy cream.  You could also do a quart of skim milk if you're going somewhere healthier.  I found a quart of 2% to be a good compromise.

If you just reuse the beaters for the egg whites without washing them you'll find that the soft peaks NEVER form.

Make sure you buy dark rum, not spiced rum.  Spiced rum will taste funny.  I find Myers Dark Rum works well.  I usually cheap out and buy the least expensive brandy I can find.  I don't go quite that low end for bourbon, but close.

Enjoy!

Food Allergies for the Holidays: Gluten-Free Snickerdoodles

It's that time of year.  The time when I made 8 different kind of Christmas cookies and then throw a Hannukwanzachrist (it was Christmakkuh until Josh Schwartz made that trendy) party so everyone can help me eat them.  I'm pretty sure between the butter, the shortening, the flour and the sugar, eating them myself would cause a 40+ pound holiday weight gain. 

This is my first Christmas season eating wheat-free.  So I decided it was time to start experimenting with gluten-free cookies.  It really wasn't that hard.  I basically combined two recipes floating around my stack of cookie recipes.  

Gluten-Free Snickerdoodles

Beat together 1/2 cup butter (softened) with 1 cup sugar. 

Beat in 1 egg and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla.

Mix together dry ingredients:

1 1/2 cup gluten-free flour (I used Bob's Red Mill All-Purpose Gluten-Free Flour Mix)

3/8 teaspoon xanthum gum

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon cream of tarter

Mix dry ingredients into wet ingredients.

Combine 1 tabelspoon each sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon and put on a plate or bowl for coating the batter.

Roll about 1 tablespoon of batter into a ball, then roll in sugcinnameg mixture to coat.  

Bake at 375 for 10 minutes, then remove to rack to cool.

That's it!  It's that easy.  And they are DELICIOUS.  Be careful with the gluten-free flour mix you use - some already have xanthum gum and some don't.  If it doesn't include it, 1/4 teaspoon xanthum gum per 1 cup of flour should be about right.  

I enjoyed a nice warm cookie with a glass of unsweetened vanilla coconut milk.  The holidays aren't going to be so bad after all!