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Cyril K. Collins Eggnog Recipe

http://256.com/gray/recipes/eggnog/

December 10, 2001

The following is my grandfather's eggnog recipe. It is a full, rich, and creamy version of the holiday drink. Truly delicious.

I do not know if he concocted it himself or picked it up somewhere. As an aside, as an Assistant Vice President in charge of the Traffic Department of the Bell System (back when it was the sole telephone system in the US), he is credited with proposing and implementing such technologies as call-time discounts and was involved with the introduction of direct-dialing and area codes.

Gray Watson

Here's an graph of the hits to my eggnog page during the 2000 holidays.

Warning

This eggnog is a very potent alcoholic beverage. Please encourage the members of your party to bring a Designated Driver if they plan on having some. If you are interested in lowering the alcohol content of the recipe, you can use a lower proof whiskey and/or rum or substitute a cup of milk for every cup of alcohol you remove.

Ingredients

Directions

1. Separate eggs into yolks and whites (see below for a how-to)
2. Beat egg-yokes, add 1/2 of Sugar, set aside.
3. Beat egg-whites till stiff, then mix in rest (1/2) of sugar.
4. Combine the yokes and whites together gently.
5. Stir in rum slowly
6. Stir in milk slowly (I have used milk with cultures with great success)
7. Stir in whiskey slowly
8. Stir in 1/2 of cream slowly

You are doing things gently and slowly to preserve the eggnog's fluffiness. A good whisk and a high speed mixer helps this process immensely.

When ready to serve

1. Whip rest (1/2) of cream, fold in carefully. Notes on how to fold below.
2. Eggnog is traditionally served in small crystal glasses or punch cups which can be found in the US for ~$2 each in many antique stores.
3. Sprinkling nutmeg on surface of individual servings is strongly recommended. Information on nutmeg grinders below.

Notes

 

1. Albeit strong, this eggnog a truly delicious drink -- I am quite biased of course. This translates into the fact that you need to make more than you expect since it will be consumed faster. This also means that you should encourage people to bring their Designated Drivers if they are interested in sampling. If you see me intoxicated (hosting, walking, or backseat driving I assure you) around the time of the holidays, you will know the reason why.

    

2. Also, although certainly almost as good as a drink the next morning, eggnog can be used at breakfast by soaking bread in it and frying till browned for some excellent French toast -- adding butter and syrup at will.

    

3. Separating (how-to) -- I usually separate the egg yoke from the white by carefully cracking an egg over a cup and then slowly opening it up so that the bottom half of the shell holds the yoke. The excess white will run out into the cup. Then very carefully switch the yoke to the other half of the shell letting more white run out into the cup. Do this a couple of more times slowly. When you are done you can transfer the yoke into a bowl with the others and the whites (with no yoke in it) into the bowl with the whites.

   NOTE: Last year I used with some success an egg separator tool. This is a little device which captures the yokes and allows the whites to run into the container below. It will not save you from a broken yoke but does speed up the process.

   WARNING: With such a large number of eggs, it is recommended that for each egg, you separate the whites into a cup and then poor this cup into a larger container upon success. If you break a yoke into the whites you can then discard only that egg. Separating failures usually result on the last egg and will ruin the whites if any yoke gets in. A dozen eggs can be suddenly quite hard to find one holiday evening. If you do manage to drop some yoke into the whites, see if you can fish it out cleanly with a spoon immediately.

    

4. FOLDING (definition) -- Julia Child suggests using a rubber spatula, dealing with 1/3 of the mixture of a time, and rotating the bowl until blended. Putting the spatula into the mixture and essentially bringing up to the top what was on the bottom. Move the bowl and do it again and keep doing it until the mixture has some consistency. In other words it is not still mostly whipped cream here and other there, but an airy light mixture generally.