Glam Nog

This will, as you no doubt intuit, be my final post of the year. I will confess that the subtitle "The Hot New Holiday Trend" is more aspirational than fact, but you, gentle reader, can easily actualize it.Glam Nog is not a specific recipe, it's more like a feeling you get, deep inside your heart. It's the friends you made along the way. It's edible glitter and gold sprinkled all over the top of your egg nog. You can make glam nog with two ingredients: your favorite egg nog from the grocery store, and edible gold.A fancy ribbon will also go a long way, but let's be real, you can also go much, much bigger.

Below I will give my recipe for luxurious, silky, dare I say it, glamorous egg nog. Think of it as my Christmas present to you, and as your Christmas present to yourself.Regarding the composition of egg nog, I will first note that many people are put off by the idea of drinking raw egg yolks, drowned in liquor or not. To me, the ideal egg nog needs to be accessible, so I chose to use créme anglaise as the base of my nog. Long-time readers may remember a previous foray of mine into the use of this ingredient. To make the créme anglaise, I followed this recipe from Chefsteps, but in lieu of the whisk/double boiler conventional method, I cooked mine sous vide at 82c for 15 minutes.

This will, of course, scramble the eggs a bit, but you can easily repair this damage by giving your custard a spin in a high speed blender. I'm not sure if this is technically correct, but it's easy and delicious, and yields a lovely pourable custard. For mine, I also made a mélange of winter spices and cooked them into the custard. Mine was something like:

3g nutmeg

3g allspice

3g mace

2g cardamon

2g cinnamon

5g vanilla paste

I did have a small issue from my previous work with this ingredient. The custard is too heavy, and it can't hold any air. Shake it, blend it, whisk it -- it just won't aerate. It sinks instantly. In pursuit of aeration, I sampled several high quality local Seattle nogs, and I found that a higher milk:yolk content is one way to make the drink more frothable. Too much yolk weighs the mixture down, but more milk results in a lighter, eminently more aeratable nog.

I wanted to build on the egg flavor more, and I felt like the milkier nogs were a tease. To deliver a double whammy of egg in my nog, I had the idea to try integrating a meringue into the custard. I made an italian meringue by bringing 150 grams of sugar and 57 grams of water up to 235 C, and then pouring it into a stand mixer full of stiff peaks egg whites. The hot sugar cooks the whites and stiffens them up into a velvety, marshmallowy foam. To drive home the holiday flavor, I used a blend of white and muscovado sugar in my meringue.

For the spirits I used a 50/50 blend of vanilla bean-infused bourbon and demerara rum. I find that the presence of fatty liquids such as milk, cream, or custard makes booze taste boozier. In order to keep my nog smooth and drinkable, I dropped the proportion of alcohol down to a single ounce. An ounce of whole milk rounded out the drink, giving it a little bit of levity.

Glam Nog: The Hot New Holiday Trend

2 oz Muscovado

Italian Meringue

1 oz Winter Spice Creme Anglaise

1 oz Whole Milk

.5 oz Vanillla-infused Bourbon

.5 oz Demerara Rum

Shake it Briefly, then double strain into a glass decorated with ribbons and Christmas ornaments. Top it with edible glitter and gold.

The more you glam this up, the more you will enjoy it. Use your imagination and follow your heart. See you in 2018!