Eggnog Ice Cream
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
I’m writing this post on December 13, well ahead of when it’ll be published. When I set out to make a batch of ice cream each week for an entire year, I failed to take vacations or holiday weeks into account. And it just so happens that I’ll be on the East Coast from December 20th through December 28th, making it nearly impossible for me to make any ice cream that week. So I made this one in advance, something I might have to do a few more times moving forward.
In addition to queueing everything up in advance, I also utilized a major shortcut for this week’s recipe. Instead of telling you, I’ll just show you. This week’s humble list of ingredients is…
That’s right. This week’s ice cream did not come from a recipe…or at least not a recipe I put together. No, I simply purchased a carton of Clover Eggnog and then dumped the contents into my ice cream machine. Because as it turns out, Eggnog is essentially an ice cream base packaged up in a carton. Check out the ingredients:
Egg yolks and guar gum! It’s a stabilizer extravaganza!
As a result of this, there’s not much process to document. In fact, making it was laughably easy. Here’s what I did:
That about sums it up. It churned up remarkably fast. I usually churn for between 30 and 45 minutes, but this was done in well under 30 minutes. And the results?
The consistency came out light, airy, and a bit icy—but not in a bad way. It reminded me of cotton candy consistency for some reason, perhaps because the body of the ice cream seemed to melt away fast as I was eating it. Perhaps it’s better described as a cross between shave ice and ice cream. I was even thinking that this might be what ice milk texture is like.
If all of this is coming across as unappetizing to you, that’s not my intention. The consistency was really good despite the icyness. And the taste was unsurprisingly good because buying a carton of Clover eggnog is like buying a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. You know the taste is going to be solid.
The only addition I would consider in the future is some alcohol flavoring. I realize that brandy or rum are standard ingredients for eggnog, but humor me for a moment. When I worked at Oakland Tech, there was this one year when just before winter break, one of my colleagues gave me a small mason jar full of his family’s homemade, spiked eggnog. It was delicious. I believe he used bourbon in the recipe, but I think rum would have been pleasing as well. I don’t drink much alcohol (I’m not a teetotaler, but I’m getting pretty close), but I think adding the flavor of rum or brandy would work well in the ice cream configuration of eggnog.
One last note: making ice cream this way reminded me of vla, also known as Dutch pudding. If you’ve never had the pleasure, you should try and get your hands on some.
As you can see, they sell it in cartons over there. With vla, you can just pour yourself a bowl of pudding! What a world!
Alright, that’s all for this installment folks. Best wishes to you and your family, and I hope you enjoy whatever holiday you may—or may not—be celebrating. See you in 2025!