Eggnog | Homemade eggnog | Boozy Chirstmas Drink

When it comes to eggnog you either love it or don't. If you are a spice lover then you will love it. But then if spices are not your thing then this drink is not for you. As for me, I love eggnog. Its creamy, its luscious and its comforting. This here is an adult version like the one where Jake drinks and sings "mammio daddio" in Two and a half men. Most of the eggnog recipes that I came across uses uncooked eggs and whipping eggwhites and folding it into the drink. Well I hate uncooked eggs and this recipe was just right for me. I referred lot many recipes and came up with my own version. As for the rum, you can totally skip it and add imitation rum extract or if you are one who doesn't love rum flavor then skip it.

Prep time: 5 mins; Cooking time: 15 mins; Serves: 2 cups ~*What U Need*~ Egg yolks - 4 Sugar - 1/4 cup Whole Milk - 1 1/2 cups Heavy cream - 1/2 cup Freshly grated nutmeg - 1/2 + 1/8 tsp Vanilla extract - 1/2 tsp Ground cloves - 1/8 tsp Cinnamon - 1/8 tsp Rum - 2 tbsp How I Made it: In a large bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar until the mixture doubles in volume and is a nice pale color{I missed including that in my step by step pictorial}. Add the cream, milk, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg in a saucepan and bring it to a gentle simmer. Add about half of the hot milk into the egg yolk stirring constantly. Add this into the saucepan with the remaining liquid and cook stirring constantly until the mixture reaches 160 degrees or coats slightly the back of the spoon. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve, add the rum and vanilla and place it in the fridge to cool completely, best if refrigerated overnight to allow the flavors meddle.

Serve chilled with a dollop pf whipped cream!!!

So thats it Folks...
With Love,

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Baked Rum Doughnuts / Donuts & New Year Wishes

First of all lets start with "Advanced New Year Wishes to your family". I am sure that I will not be touching the blog for another few days cos we have loads of stuff planned for the new year. Pie making, friends get together party and loads of shopping is sure gonna leave me dead tired and I am not gonna touch the blog until next year. So advanced wishes... I will be starting the new year with a classic dessert and so stay tuned. Here is my toast to a fun filled year for each one of you. That being said, lets move on to the recipe.

I love clearance, who doesn't and when you get Wilton donut pans for half its price, who wouldn't. Right... Whenever I visit a store, the first stand I visit would be the 70-80% discount ones. You never know what treasures they hold, like this donut pan. There was a store closing nearby and the discount announced was 80-90% and just like anytime I dragged the huss to have a look. The shop had been cleaned out already and all that was left were some dresses hanging in one corner and quite a few other stuff stacked here and there. Thanks be to the huss who had his eye and pointed out the donut pans for me. All he said was "Didn't you want to have one of those for a longtime" and it took me less than a minute to digest what it was and grab one of those beauties.

We love donuts but I have always wanted to enjoy them guilt-free and so the baked ones have always seemed my type. This donut pan is a perfect addition to my bakeware and I see more baked donuts cropping up in this little space of mine. Coming to these donuts, I did mention that I made the rum cake in my last post and how it did collapse when unmolding the same from the cake pan right. I made these donuts from the leftover rum. I browsed for some rum donut recipes and with Google failing to show up recipes I adapted this one from a baked dounut and made changes as needed. I dipped them in a cinnamon sugar coating. While it seemed perfect for me, the huss wanted to have an additional jazzing up and so I coated his share with melted dark chocolate. Both ways they were good and we had it with some cold milk.

~*What U Need*~ Unbleached All purpose flour - 1/2 cup Whole wheat flour - 1/2 cup Baking powder - 3/4 tsp Sugar - 3 tbsp Salt - a pinch Butter - 1 tbsp, melted Egg - 1/2 or 1 egg white Dark rum - 1/2 cup Milk - 2 tbsp Cinnamon - 1/2 tsp Nutmeg - a pinch Vanilla extract - 1 tsp For the coating: Unsalted butter - 2 tbsp Caster sugar - 2 tbsp Cinnamon - a pinch to 1/8 tsp How I Made it: Preheat oven to 350C. Grease a 6-hole doughnut pan with some oil. Melt butter in a saucepan, once cooled add the egg, milk, rum and vanilla. In a large bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just combined. Spoon the batter into the donut holes and bake for 17-20 mins. Allow the doughnuts to cool for 5 mins in the pan and then remove to cooling pans. Once fully cooled, mix the caster sugar and cinnamon in a bowl, melt the butter and dip the doughnuts in the butter and then in the cinnamon-sugar mixture.

Serve with some milk!!!

So thats it Folks...
With Love,

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Eggnog French Toast

Have you ever been in a situation where you have been waiting to taste something for a long time but the moment it touches your lips and your tastebuds start realizing the flavor, you are not that happy with the taste... This was my first experience with eggnog. I had always wanted to taste eggnog but when the fact that it is made with raw eggs strikes me, I back off. However last week when I went grocery shopping I saw this pack of organic eggnog and I picked it up after that feeling of compulsion took over me. I opened the pack as soon as I reached home, poured out a tall cup and sat on the couch with that sense of satisfaction.

One sip and I knew that this is just not my cup of tea. Something urged me to take another sip and yet another and by the time I was half way through the cup, I started enjoying the flavors. However the huss didn't enjoy it as much as I did and left the job to me to finish up the carton. Okay 1 carton of 16 servings of eggnog and each serving with a calorie count of 236. Do the math, that sounded a sure increase in waistline. When I was thinking of ideas to use up the eggnog, I saw this recipe in the back of the carton itself. Creating a festive french toast by replacing the milk with eggnog for your french toast sounded just right for me. Since I wanted a pronounced kick of flavors I added some nutmeg, cinnamon and rum extract.

Speaking of which, do you remember the McCormick hamper that I won sometime back. The rum extract is part of that. The hamper is a true haul and has everything that a baker would love to have in her pantry.

~*What U Need*~ Bread slices - 4-5 Eggs - 2 Eggnog - 3/4 cup Sugar - 3 tbsp or more Cinnamon - 1/4 tsp Ground nutmeg - a pinch Imitation rum extract - 1/4 tsp Butter or ghee - to toast How I Made it: In a mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, rum extract, cinnamon,and nutmeg. Add in the eggnog and whisk well. Heat a non stick tawa till hot but not piping hot. Dip the bread slices in the milk mixture and cook till evenly cooked through and nice and brown.

Serve warm with maple syrup.

** My Notes:
** To those who donot have to eggnog just increase the nutmeg, cinnamon and rum to taste.
** If you are using freshly ground nutmeg use just a pinch cos it gives a strong flavor.
So thats it Folks...
With Love,

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Overnight Christmas Fruit Cake | Merry Christmas

Jingle bells... Jingle bells... Jingle all the way... Yaaayyyy... its carols and merriment everywhere. and so it is here in my space too. Merry Christmas to all my readers.
I spent half of my school days in a Christian school and hence I am very much tied to the season. I had sung carols and played 'Mother Mary' in the nativity play. I still remember the tune of all the carols and I love everything Christmassy. Carols, fruit cakes, and not to forget Santa claus are all a part and parcel of my childhood memories. When I told the huss that I am making a rum soaked fruit cake for Christmas, he simply asked my "Why are you going Christmassy?" I might not have my roots stuck to the religion but cakes and celebration know no religion and so does the individual (...and thats me) who eats cakes. Now the huss was not against the thought and all he needed at the end was his portion of the rich rum soaked cake.

I actually planned to make the cake few weeks back, allow it to age brushing rum every other day and finally have a bite on Christmas. But then nothing goes as per my plan these days and with the huss flying abroad, I didn't find any reason to make the cake and so didn't soak any fruits and nuts before-hand. I whipped the batter after repeated requests from my huss. Just go by the plan, he said. So finally pulled myself together and made this overnight fruit cake.

I already have a fruit cake in my space but I prepared that using fruits soaked in red wine for a month. This is a keeper if you have not pre-soaked your fruits. It is no less in flavor and tastes fruity and delicious. I suggest let the cake age for atleast 3 days, the flavor intensifies as days go by. I had mine aged for 3 days.

~*What U Need*~ All purpose flour - 1 cup Icing / confectioner's sugar - 1/2 cup Demerera sugar - 1/4 cup Butter - 100 gms Eggs - 2, separated Vanilla extract - 1/2 tsp Baking powder - 1/2 tsp Cinnamon powder - 1/4 tsp Ginger powder - 1/8 tsp Black raisins - 1/2 cup Dates - 1/2 cup, chopped Tutti frutti - 1/4 cup Cashew nuts - 1/2 cup Orange flavored rum - 1/2 cup, divided For the Caramel syrup: Sugar - 3 tbsp Water - 1 1/2 tbsp Boiling water - 1/4 cup

How I Made it:
Lets make the caramel water first. In a small pan, take the sugar and water and swirl. Heat in medium flame until the sugar turns deep amber, add the boiling water and mix till the caramel has dissolved. Set aside. In a pan, add 1/4 cup rum, dates, raisins, tutti frutti chunks and cook everything in medium flame till the dry fruits have moistened. Finally add the cashews, cook till the rum is absorbed. Put this in an air tight container, add the remaining rum and leave it overnight.

Preheat the oven to 170 C. Sieve the flour with cinnamon powder, ginger powder and baking powder. Set aside. Beat together the butter and sugar in a bowl until it turns creamy.

Add one egg yolk at a time and beat till well blended. Add the flour little by little and beat together. Add the vanilla extract and caramel syrup and blend well. Add the fruit and nut mixture to the mixing bowl and gently mix it with a spatula.

Grease well a round baking pan with butter and keep aside. Beat the egg whites in an another bowl with a pinch of salt until it turns fluffy with soft peaks. Fold the egg whites into the cake batter gently. Pour this cake batter to the greased baking pan and bake for 45-50 minutes or a skewer inserted comes out clean. Remove the cake from the oven and allow it to cool completely. (..sorry missed to click these pictures)

Serve dusted with icing sugar.

** My Notes:
** U can replace demerera with brown sugar too.
** I used a mix of broken cashew nuts, sliced almonds, chopped pistachios and chironji nuts
** You can use any type of rum or brandy. I used orange scented Bacardi rum
** If you want a non alcoholic version, substitute rum with orange juice or apple juice. Orange juice works best
** The cake tastes best when aged. Wrap in cling film or aluminium foil and store.
** I aged mine for 5 days. It was then cut and packed off for relatives. Will try to update the post with a cut piece the next time I make this.

So thats it Folks...
With Love,

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