Low Carb Eggnog

Low Carb Holiday Cocktail Classics to help you remain faithfully low carb during Christmas

Low Carb Eggnog with a shaved dark chocolate rim,
dollop of no sugar added whipped cream and a dusting
of freshly grated nutmeg.

One of the things I miss the most about pre-cancer days is convenience. I miss convenience. I miss the ability to drive my cart like a girl, down any grocery store isle of my choice and pick out a quick, convenient package of something without a thought or a shout-out from my over-active conscience.

When I decided to get serious about low carb eating, my conscience became a frequent flyer. So a lot of choices narrowed down quickly, but dangit! I did still have a few crafty choices up my sleeve until the cancer hit! Like the ability to use frankenfoods such as Mootopia, the low sugar milk to make sugar free eggnog.

And double dang it! IF only the store carried some kind of low carb eggnog. I would be their puppet.


1960 The family Christmas tree.
Dad wired each light so it stood perfectly
in the branches and hid the cords.

Eggnog has long been a holiday favorite. Long before Christmas vacation rolled out with Clark, Eddy, exterior illumination, freshcut Christmas trees, and moose mugs, I’ve been a fan of eggnog.

In fact, it wasn’t Christmas in our house without a gallon or two of eggnog in the fridge. Mama and Daddy insisted on it every year. Their favorite way to make it was to use a prepared (high carbage) eggnog spiked with rum or brandy and served with a dollop of vanilla ice cream. Even in those days they feared salmonella with us kids and WaWa (Daddy's mama who lived with us.)

OMG. Hold the spirits, but I could eat eggnog over vanilla ice cream for breakfast, lunch, or dinner! Talk about overkill! I’m your huckleberry! But Mom and Dad are gone home now and things change. I can no longer buy packaged goods, cuz I KNOW of the carcinogens in many and having had cancer, I don’t want to see the sequal. I don’t wanna eat high carbage junk, so those are out too.

Our annual family portrait minus Dad and WaWa.

I’m hopelessly locked into a low convenience, scratch cooking world previously inhabited by WaWa and all the Fluffy Chix mamas and grannies who’ve come before. Slightly inconvenient. Vastly underrated.  And perhaps, a little ignored, since you guys represent a very small subset of people who want to actually MAKE food from complete scratch these days.

In fact, it does take so much energy to simply make all our food from scratch on top of working that we didn't even put up our Christmas decorations last year while I was going through treatment and having the double mastectomy. Talk about pooped and sick! And this year's tree is up only as a result of my sweet sissies, tireless ability to give and give and give. They came over the Saturday after Thanksgiving to put my tree up for me while I did little more than watch from the couch!

Vintage Snow Scene that has been up every year for
over 60 years.

Sadly all the other decorations from childhood and the family Christmas tree are not out this year. The snowscene that we've put out every Christmas since before I was born is safely packed away for another year. The stockings will not be hung and gingerbread houses will be skipped this year as will the second small tree. (Shhh don't tell the boys, they will be pi**ed!)

But back to low carb eggnog, the good news is this is a very credible eggnog recipe. It originated from a writer at About.com and I morphed it into a low carb version. I like this low carb eggnog because it’s actually a cooked custard and that makes me feel safer because of the risk of food born disease such as salmonella. After having a compromised immune system due to the cancer and cancer treatment, I still shy away from eating raw protein.

Pre-Cancer Christmas Tree at the Fluffy House.

You can omit the alcohol in the recipe. It will taste delicious. But it adds quite a lot of volume (1cup), so be prepared to serve fewer people. I’m actually gonna imbibe this Christmas as a special occasion for all the low carb holiday cocktails I make for you. But it will be a once a year thing (because of the association of recurrence and alcohol consumption).

If you want to really guild the lily, make a recipe to put into the ice cream freezer and churn the low carb eggnog into ice cream. If you do this, I would probably reduce the amount of alcohol to about ¼ to ½ cup so that it will freeze ok. There might be problems with freezing if the alcohol quantity is 1 cup. Use the ice cream to garnish the eggnog, or simply garnish it with low carb whipped cream.

I will be back later with more step-by-step pictures, but felt it more important to just get the recipe out to you guys!

Cheers! And hope your Christmas and Hanukkah are merry and bright!

Low Carb Eggnog

Serves: 10        Serving Size: ½ cup         Yield: About 5-6 cups

Preparation Time: 15 Minutes

Primary Cooking Time: 15 Minutes

Start to Finish Time: 2 Hours 30 Minutes

Difficulty: Easy

Fantastic low carb, cooked eggnog makes the Holidays merry and bright!

Ingredients

Low Carb Eggnog in moose mug makes Denny and
the "boys" Merry and Bright!

For the custard:

• 1/3 cup erythritol, granular -- measure before powdering
• 2 tablespoons xylitol, granular -- measure before powdering
• 1/16 teaspoon stevia powder (Sweet Leaf – pure stevia)
• 1 ½ cups heavy cream
• 1 cup water
• 3 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

   (Note: Sub 1 tsp Better Stevia + 1/8c Swerve for the granular erythritol and xylitol in the recipe. Adjust custard sweetness to taste with EZSweetz of concentrated liquid stevia.)

For the eggnog:  

• 1 cup heavy cream
• 2-3 drops EZSweetz, or concentrated liquid stevia
• ½ cup Cognac -- or brandy
• ½ cup rum
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg -- freshly ground   

Garnish (optional)

• Whipped Cream  OR Low Carb Eggnog Ice Cream

For Custard

Measure then grind erythritol, xylitol and powdered Stevia in a clean coffee grinder until it turns into a powder. Let the dust settle before lifting coffee grinder lid.
 

In a heavy saucepan, add 1 1/2 cup heavy cream and water. Slowly heat to scald cream. Whisk in powdered sugar substitutes and stir until sugars dissolve.

In large stainless or glass bowl, beat eggs with a whisk until light and fluffy. Temper eggs by slowly pouring hot sweetened cream into eggs while whisking like a mad woman. Once you've poured about half the cream into the eggs, you should be able to then pour the egg mixture back into the remaining hot sweetened cream.

Cook 10 to 15 minutes over medium heat stirring constantly, until mixture coats a metal spoon and temperature reaches 160°. Don't exceed 160° or allow the custard to boil or you will curdle the custard and taste like scrambled eggs.

Remove custard from heat and stir in vanilla.

Place saucepan in a large bowl of ice water until custard cools. Stir frequently to quick chill custard. Refrigerate custard until thoroughly chilled - about a couple of hours.

For Eggnog

When custard has cooled, stir in rum and Cognac. If you have non-drinkers in your holiday house, leave the spirits out and simply add them to each glass as you serve it – about ½ oz of each per glass or thereabouts.
 
In an ice cold bowl, whip 1 cup heavy cream with 2-3 drops EZSweetz or your preferred sugar substitute. Beat until soft peaks form. Stir in a heavy pinch of nutmeg (freshly grated is preferred but not imperative.)

Gently fold whipped cream into Low Carb Eggnog.

Garnish is not included in counts. But adding a dollop of fresh whipped cream and dusting of extra nutmeg makes the low carb eggnog fabulous!

Per Serving (granular sweetener): 287 Calories; 24g Fat (79.1% calories from fat); 3g Protein; 11g Carbohydrate; 9g Dietary Fiber; 145mg Cholesterol; 44mg Sodium; 2g Net Carbs.

Per Serving (stevia liquid and Swerve sweetener): 281 Calories; 24g Fat (91.1% calories from fat); 3g Protein; 2g Carbohydrate; trace Dietary Fiber; 2g Effective Carbs

(Note: FCC does not count the sugar alcohol carbs from Swerve since it is made mostly from Erythritol which does not effect blood sugar.

Serving Ideas: Serve with low carb eggnog ice cream or with a dollop of gently sweetened whipped cream.

SUSIET’s NOTES

This is a ridiculously easy and glamorous Holiday cocktail. I love it because it reminds me of our daddy, who adored eggnog and never felt like it was Christmas if he didn't have it. The tradition of Holiday 'nog continued through our brother-in-law who makes a fantastic eggnog, and through Denny who shares our dad's eggnog passion.

I like this low carb eggnog because it uses whole eggs and is based on a cooked custard. For people with immune problems, it's a safe bet - unlike eating eggs cooked solely by alcohol. It will keep in the fridge for a week.

One trick that makes this eggnog fantastic is to churn a recipe of eggnog into ice cream. You only use 1/4c of rum along with a tablespoon of glycerin or a spoon of sugar free instant pudding mix in the hot custard in order to keep the ice cream a scoopable consistency when frozen. Then, when ready to serve, you add a scoop of frozen eggnog ice cream to each glass and pour well-chilled eggnog over low carb eggnog ice cream. Delicious!

One thought about the carb counts listed here. You can significantly reduce your carb count by omitting the sugar alcohols in favor of a liquid sweetener such as liquid Splenda. But honestly, erythritol and xylitol have a very low impact on blood sugar and I just go ahead and subtract out the full amount of fiber, making this a very low carb, once-a-year-treat. It’s not exactly low cal anyway, so it’s self-limiting to me!
 

You can also sub out part of the heavy cream in the custard for Carolyn’s Low Carb Milk or with almond milk or coconut milk in order to lower the carb count a teensy bit.

Low Carb Eggnog with Whipped Cream.
85% Cacao Lindt Extra Dark Chocolate shavings around
the rim is a surprising and festive addition.

Feel free to use your own blends of sweeteners. You are looking for about 1/3c of sugar equivalent sweetening. I tend to like things less sweet, so this formulation does it for me, but others may choose to go sweeter.

To correct sweetness, I generally use EZSweetz concentrated Splenda drops. 1 drop of EZSweetz is equivalent to 2 teaspoons of sugar sweetness.

 

Now serve it in elegant Christmas Vacation "moose" eggnog glasses and enjoy!