Recipe Dairy Free Traditional Eggnog

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

I've taken it upon myself, and it's a hard task I can tell you, to try and make some of the eggnog recipes out there dairy free or even vegan and taste test them.

This one is just dairy free, not vegan because I have an excess of eggs (yet again) and because my omniblend (similar to a Vitamix but cheaper) had an issue at present and hubby is fixing the jug.

So the first taste test is a simple dairy free eggnog. OK I know it's not even 11am yet and is a little early to be hitting the alcohol but...
The recipe comes from the BBC Good Food site with me having switched out the dairy ingredients for non-dairy.

You need a little bit of forward planning with this recipe, the sugar syrup must be cold and the eggnog needs to stand for 2 hrs in the fridge to chill, but the good news is that it can be made up to 24 hrs in advance and I guess if like me you have your own supply of eggs, or you really trust where your eggs came from, it will last longer in the fridge if you're more liberal with the brandy which is after all a preservative! But this is your choice. I'm happy to leave mine in the fridge for a few days. You may not be.



Ingredients (serves 6)
50g raw sugar (or golden caster/granulated sugar)
75ml boiling water
6 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla essence (get a good quality one)
1 tin (roughly 330-400g size) soya condensed milk.
100 ml brandy

Method.

1. Dissolve the sugar in the water and set aside to cool. You do need it cold so plan ahead. I also just weighed out the water (75g) to make life easier.
2. Seperate the eggs yolks and whisk lightly with the vanilla essence.
3. Gradually beat in the remaining ingredients holding back the sugar syrup until the end.
4. Now add the sugar syrup to taste. You may find you don't need all of it with the sweetness from the soya condensed milk.
5. Now pour into a suitable container and leave to stand in the fridge for a couple of hours before serving.

The taste is very close to that which I remember from my teenage years so I'm quite happy with this recipe. I will write up and review a recipe for making homemade vegan condensed milk as well just in case you are unable to purchase it tinned. Thankfully in able to get both tinned soya and coconut condensed milk quite easily but making some could also be fun.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

Some thoughts on this.

I think it would work out better (just creamier) if the sugar syrup was made with soya milk instead of water. Just a thought.
I've added some extra egg yolks because I could and after all it is eggnog, so there is an egg yolk per serving in my version.
It would be interesting to compare the taste of this using tinned soya condensed milk and homemade soya condensed milk.

But I like it. The kilner jar mine is in is a 500ml one. It didn't quite fit into my container! Shucks.

 

[Francesca]

@SatNavSaysStraightOn

Absolutely a fabulous endeavor ..

Yes, I agree that a soy or even an almond milk would be better than wáter and provide a much creamier texture ..

That looks like some lovely Brandy !!!

Have a lovely day ..

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

My husband reports that he had never had eggnog before. He won't be getting any tomorrow either, the bottle is now empty. That is the eggnog bottle is, not the brandy bottle. I suspect he wouldn't say no to another attempt perhaps with homemade condensed soya milk and made thinner with a soya milk sugar syrup. He was rather taken with it.

I'm not certain of I'll try the vegan version before the end of the week. I've currently got a few things on the go including a while load of roving (the pre yarn stage of wool ready for spinning) now cooling for an overnight soak in a eucalyptus bark solution which spent 3 hours on the stove today with the bark and 3 hours simmering with the roving. Next comes the washing phase before drying it so I can spin it... Maybe I needed the eggnog after all that!

 

[Morning Glory]

I'm not sure if I got this this right but my calculation is that the eggnog is 8% alcohol. (.20 x 40%)?

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

I'm not sure if I got this this right but my calculation is that the eggnog is 8% alcohol. (.20 x 40%)?

It could be. What is it normally?

The recipe I followed was specific about 100ml brandy. I reckon that there was roughly 550-600 ml of liquid by end assuming my kilner bottle is a 500 ml bottle which I thought it was. So we probably had less than a bottle of beer averaging 5-6%.

Eggnog isn't that strong normally is it? 100ml between 6 people would be less than 20ml per serving (actually 16.6667 ml) isn't that 1/2 a shot? Just checked and a serving of brandy in a pub is either 25 ml or 35 ml for a single, so my thoughts at 1/2 a 'shot' are not far off.