Christmas Pudding Irish Cream

For Granny

 

One of my favourite traditions of the season is to put on some Christmas carols and have a glass or two of Bailey's Irish cream on the rocks while I'm decorating the tree and wrapping the presents. Turns out that I inherited this habit from my Granny who not only loves a glass herself, but has also been known to whip up her own homemade batch at Christmas time.

Recipes for homemade Irish cream are easy to find, just as easy to make, and cost about half that of the commercial product.

Excited by the success of the Christmas Vodka, I was inspired to create this especially Christmassy version of Irish cream by infusing the whiskey with the pudding spices as in the vodka recipe.  The addition of caramel flavouring was an after thought and adds an extra dimension, but can be left out if you don't have any.

Ingredients

350ml Irish Whiskey
200g mixed fruit

1 tbsp brown sugar
1 cinnamon quill
1 tsp ground mixed spice
3 cloves
pinch of nutmeg
200ml single cream
1 tin condensed milk
1 tsp coffee essence or instant espresso powder
3 tsp chocolate sauce
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp almond essence
1 tsp caramel flavouring (optional)


Method

Put the whiskey, fruit, brown sugar and spices in a bowl. Leave to soak for 24-48 hours.


Strain the whiskey into a clean bowl through a sieve lined in muslin. Squeeze the bundle of fruit to extract as much liquid as you can.

Whisk in the rest of the ingredients one at a time.

 If there remain undissolved bits of cream or coffee, you can strain the irish cream again before bottling.  Pour into a sterilised bottle of one litre capacity, or a number of smaller bottles to use as gifts. 

Christmas Vodka

I was staying in Brussels last November, and as luck would have it, the tv in my hotel room had an excellent array of channels in multiple languages, many of which were in full Christmas season programming mode.  BBC was particularly joyful, and I was heartwarmed and inspired by The Hairy Bikers' Christmas Party series which featured this cheeky and ingenious recipe for Christmas pudding flavoured vodka. I have tinkered with the ingredients only slightly, just to make it sweeter.

Ingredients

300g mixed dried fruit
75g caster sugar
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 cinnamon quills
2 tsp ground mixed spice
6 cloves
scant 1/2 tsp nutmeg
Zest of an orange and a lemon
700ml vodka (don't skimp on quality)

Method

Put all ingredients together in a bowl and stir until sugar has dissolved. Cover with cling film and let sit in the fridge for 2 days, stirring occasionally.  Strain through a sieve lined in muslin. Decant into sterilised bottles.

When it comes to the drinking, the vodka is nice on its own or with a mixer- perhaps lemonade or dry ginger ale. The best way to drink it, though, and I cannot recommend this highly enough, is with Bickford's cranberry cordial made up with soda water.  You can adjust the quantities of cordial, soda water and vodka to achieve the strength and sweetness that appeals to you.  For me, especially at Christmas, the sweeter the better.

 If you're into giving homemade gifts to friends and family, little bottles of this ruby red vodka would make a nifty alternative to the more routine offerings of cake or cookies.