Eggnog Muffins

Today’s Foodie Factoid: George Washington served a primitive form of eggnog to his guests with three different types of booze in it (sherry, rum, and rye whiskey). Good luck to you standing up after having a bit of that! For more information about eggnog you can go here.

I did not grow up drinking eggnog–it wasn’t one of those long time family traditions or anything like that. Nope. I didn’t become acquainted with my good friend eggnog until I moved to New Jersey when I was about 10. It was at this point that we started celebrating most of the holidays with my dad’s side of the family. My grandma, wonderful lady that she is, introduced the drug drink to me as a treat one Hanukkah. Mistake. If my family would have let me, I probably would have sat on the kitchen floor then and there and chugged the entire bottle. I was in love.

It used to be that when we went to my grandparents’ house we would spend the night on Thanksgiving instead of going back home like we do now. So ten year old little me had gone to Thanksgiving dinner, stuffed her face with sweets and turkey, and was now supposed to be in bed asleep. However, the magic potion eggnog had cast a spell on her. Throughout the night, she would sneak down 5-6 times to fill a shot glass up with eggnog, sip it down, and then surreptitiously rinse out the glass and put it back in the cabinet. To this day I’m not sure how I didn’t get caught and how nobody questioned why 3/4ths of the carton of eggnog had mysteriously disappeared over the course of the night. Good job little me. I still have a feeling that they may have noticed and just never commented. I’ll have to ask my parents.

Now that I’m older, I still enjoy eggnog on occasion, but I won’t necessarily go out of my way to drink it. This seems to have happened with a lot of foods. When I was really little I adored cheesecake and would do just about anything to get my hands on some. Now I’m very meh about it. I feel the same way about eggnog–it’s no longer one of my favorites–but I thought that it would be a nice throwback to do something a bit more sophisticated with it than chug it directly from the carton.

The attempt at sophistication didn’t disappoint! These muffins are delicious. They are puffy and moist and absolutely amazing with or without the glaze. I finally did something intelligent and ate lunch before I made these muffins because if I’d baked beforehand I would currently be sitting on the floor with crumbs and a food baby. Make them now, make them for Thanksgiving/Hanukkah, make them for Christmas just make them at some point!

Aren’t you proud of me for finally hopping on the Winter Holidays/Thanksgiving Baking Train? I didn’t need a can opener for these so it was just a tad bit easier than making my perfunctory Halloween pumpkin treat!

Yields 12 standard muffins

Preheat oven to 400°F

Muffins:

-2 c flour
-1 1/2 c eggnog (I used full-fat, but light will probably work just fine)
-1 package of instant vanilla pudding mix (unprepared)
-1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
-1/2 c granulated sugar
-1/2 c brown sugar
-1 stick of melted butter
-1 tsp vanilla
-2 eggs
-1 Tbsp baking powder

Glaze:

-1/2-3/4 c powdered sugar depending on how thick you want your glaze
-3 Tbsp eggnog
-1/2 tsp cinnamon
-1/2 tsp vanilla

1. You know the drill, preheat the oven to 400°F
2. Mix all the muffin ingredients together in a bowl.
3. Grease muffin tin or put down muffin liners
4. Spoon batter into the muffin tins until filled most of the way up
5. Bake for 15-20 minutes (the time range is because my oven sucks) or until a knife stuck in comes out clean
6. Whisk together glaze ingredients
7. Dip cooled muffins into glaze