Low-Carb Eggnog

As I’ve got a nasty flu, it has been the easiest for me to consume my food in liquid form. And that was a really good excuse to develop a recipe for low-carb eggnog! Smooth, creamy, velvety, nourishing and you can add there some rum for soothing a sore throat or just to get in the holiday mood!

Update 19th November 2014: I just learnt that the “Half-and-Half” used in the US contains all kinds of food additives. Please do yourself a favor and never use that kind of junk! What I mean here with half-and-half is simpy light cream with fat content of some 10%-12%. If you cannot find light cream (half cream in UK), just use half heavy cream and half milk. You can even try unsweetened almond milk or coconut milk to keep the carb count to the minimum.

 

 

 

Tips for making the Low-Carb Eggnog

In case you don’t have half-and-half at hand, you can use 3/4 cup + 1 tablespoon (195 ml) heavy cream and 3 cup + 3 tablespoons (765 ml) whole milk. Organic dairy products are preferred, naturally. Well, the measures are not that exact, so you can use 3/4 cup heavy cream and 3 1/4 cup whole milk. Or, if you prefer metric measures, you might use as well 200 ml heavy cream and 800 ml whole milk. For a smaller number of people, you can halve the recipe.

10 egg yolks make relatively thick custard, which allows some rum to be added so that the mixture doesn’t become too thin. However, if you plan not to add rum or other liquid, you might want to use 8 egg yolks instead.

Be sure to heat the mixture over a low enough heat. Stir the mixture all the time along the bottom of the saucepan to keep milk from burning on the bottom.

When you see the mixture bubbling, take the saucepan from the heat and turn off the heat. Cover the saucepan with a lid and let cool in a room temperature for one or two hours, pour the mixture into an airtight container and put it in the fridge for several hours or overnight.

Add the rum or the rum flavoring just before serving. I like to add a big dollop of whipped cream for decoration and grate some nutmeg on top.

 

 

Low-Carb Eggnog 4 cups = 960 ml half-and-half 10 egg yolks from extra large organic eggs 80–100 drops liquid vanilla stevia 1 pinch freshly ground nutmeg (1/3 cup = 80 ml rum; or rum flavoring to taste)   Directions In a saucepan, combine the half-and-half, egg yolks, vanilla stevia and nutmeg. Cook over a low heat constantly stirring along the bottom until light custard forms. Take the saucepan from the heat and turn off the heat. Cover the saucepan with a lid and let cool for one or two hours. Pour the mixture into an airtight container and chill it in the fridge for several hours or preferably overnight. Just before serving, add the rum or rum flavoring and stir until well mixed. Decorate with an ample amount of whipped cream and some freshly ground nutmeg.

 

 

Nutrition information	Protein	Fat	Net carbs	kcal
In total:	55.0 g	144.8 g	43.0 g	1861 kcal
Per serving if 8 servings in total:	6.9 g	18.1 g	5.4 g	233 kcal
Per serving if 10 servings in total:	5.5 g	14.5 g	4.3 g	186 kcal

(Rum is included in the calculation)

 

 

My experiments with the Low-Carb Eggnog

It’s always so difficult to decide which recipe to develop and publish next! I’m really scratching my head over that every week. The problem is, that I have so many great ideas and I’m getting new ideas all the time. And as the most impatient person in the world I would like to develop and publish all of them at once!

It was Wednesday evening when I decided to concentrate on developing sugar-free low-carb eggnog. For a while I had done experiments with cranberry cheesecake recipe and I thought that I had already achieved perfection until my latest experiment had huge cracks on top. No way. No cranberry cheesecake recipe this week.

I had several other ideas as well, including a nice, warm cranberry drink to soothe my sore throat, or rich peanut butter hot chocolate. But somehow I didn’t consider them appropriate enough for the holiday season.

It was 10 p.m. on Wednesday evening when I came inside after shoveling some snow in our yard. I started thinking what on earth to publish this week, I have so many ideas! In the very back of my head and low in my to-do list there was a recipe for eggnog. Perfect! Holidays are just knocking on the door and my poor body debilitated by the flu needs something extra nutritious. In the very late evening I could add there a dash of rum… for soothing my throat.

So, I unearthed my notes on my previous eggnog experiments and wrote down my improvement ideas. Luckily my plans and the goal were quite clear, since I had done plenty of low-carb eggnog experiments before. I expected to be able to develop a great sugar-free low-carb eggnog recipe within a few days. Challenging! But I love challenges, why on earth would I otherwise publish sugar-free, gluten-free low-carb recipes with 5 ingredients or less, using foreign language and American measures? Yes, I live for challenges!

Okay, enough for that. Back to the recipe experiments. First I tried a version without heating the mixture. I didn’t use half-and-half, I used heavy cream and whole milk. I whipped the cream and folded it into the other ingredients which I had mixed first. The result was okay, but not perfect. I was hoping that the whipped cream makes the consistency thick. Well, sort of, but mainly the cream was floating on top of the whole thing. There was no easy way out, I had to heat the mixture to get thicker and homogeneous consistency.

I had just ordered a new product to try out, vanilla flavored stevia packets. I tried one packet in latte, and that was great. This was the right place to explore more. So, I put all the ingredients — including 3 packets of vanilla flavored stevia — in a saucepan and started heating over a low heat. The consistency and the texture were great, but the flavor of stevia was overpowering. The typical aftertaste of stevia was very prominent. Not nice. Definitely going to stick to the liquid vanilla stevia in my next experiments.

First I used only egg yolks, but since my fridge was filled with egg whites faster than I was able to bake meringues, I decided to try out what happens if use whole eggs. The texture was alright, but not great. With egg yolks the texture was smooth and velvety. Also the color was really great, it was beautifully warm, yellow color. So, looks that the rest of the week I’m going to bake loads of meringues…

 

 

 

Tips for variation

When I make this eggnog for my family, I omit the rum or rum flavoring so that everybody can drink it. Vanilla and nutmeg are the only spices I use. My toddler loves this plain eggnog, as you can see from the photo below 🙂 Sometimes I add some rum or whiskey to my portion.

You can naturally substitute whiskey for rum, or use some other alcoholic or non-alcoholic drink, which doesn’t have added sugar.

You can get more variation by adding some spices. A little bit cinnamon enhances the holiday feeling. For something different for a change — chai eggnog — you can put one bag of caffeine-free rooibos chai tea to the saucepan and heat it with the other ingredients. Be careful when stirring the mixture, the teabag breaks easily. Remove the teabag from the chilled mixture, before adding the possible rum or rum flavoring.

If you prefer even richer and creamier eggnog, please feel free to substitute some of the half-and-half with heavy cream.

In case you prefer sweeter eggnog, you can add more vanilla stevia, or preferably unflavored stevia. Unflavored stevia gives more sweetness with less amount. Stevia is easy to add to the ready, chilled mixture. Since it’s already fluid, it doesn’t have any problems in dissolving like erythritol, for example.

Also the amount of rum or rum flavoring is easy to adjust. Start with a small amount and add more if needed.