Directions
Whiskey cream is a classic, lush, delicious liqueur to always keep on hand to correct the cappuccino, add a velvety and spicy touch to ice cream, or sip with ice as an after-dinner cocktail.
But honestly speaking, the whiskey creams you find on the market are not masterpieces. Of course, there is Baileys, the progenitor who started these products in 1974, but if you want to make the perfect Irish cream, not too sweet, but spicy and velvety, you’ve come to the right page, because today we will provide you with our secret recipe.
Let’s first see what whiskey cream is. Very simple is a liqueur made with an alcoholic base of Irish whiskey, coffee, cream, milk, cocoa beans, sugar and spices. On the other hand, the step from Irish Coffee to Baileys is short. If you want to make a quick battle-ready homemade liqueur, put whiskey, cream and condensed milk in a blender with a pinch of vanilla and cinnamon and blend. In this way, you will make a very light but acceptable Irish cream.
If, on the other hand, you want to make a superfine homemade liqueur to be used as a professional bartender or to soak the crust with cream, you will have to start with a milk base to be flavored with vanilla, cocoa beans, spices. Then you will combine the cream and whiskey and you can blend. So the difference is very subtle.
You can buy condensed milk and do some experiments, but flavoring the milk by simply boiling it with what you like best is a fundamental step to achieving perfection. We will provide you with a basic recipe for making whiskey cream, but then you can customize it as you like, using the distillate of your choice, the spices that most tickle your curiosity. If you want to make a vegan whiskey cream, use almond milk and coconut cream. Indeed they are even more aromatic and sumptuous ingredients!
Forgive this long introduction. We may have been too picky, but making whiskey cream is not a trivial process. Think that Baileys is the best-selling liqueur in the world and every year 220 million liters are used for the production of this drink. We are talking about a product with a certain appeal, so we want to offer you an impeccable recipe.
Ingredients and doses to make homemade whiskey cream
To make 1,5 liters
- 2 liters of milk
- 1 vanilla pod
- 1 star anise
- 1 piece of cinnamon
- 100 grams of cocoa beans
- 230 grams of sugar
- 8 grams of salt
- 32 grams of ground coffee
- 1 liter of Irish whiskey
- 330 grams of fresh cream
- 5 grams of cornstarch as a thickener
How to make homemade whiskey cream
A note before starting: this liqueur contains no preservatives, so you must keep it in the refrigerator. It is not an industrial cream full of preservatives, here there are only fresh ingredients, so it can be kept for two weeks, even more, if desired, but then it starts to lose intensity and it is better to do it again. The corn starch only serves as a thickener, and you can also not add it. However, it helps to give consistency. It has no flavor and in this way, the whiskey will not separate from the cream.
Take a large saucepan with a thick bottom, pour in the milk and turn on the stove. Put the cinnamon and cocoa beans inside, cut the vanilla pod lengthwise and throw it into the milk. Cook over low heat, gently boiling the milk, for 40 minutes.
Filter the milk, put it back in the saucepan, turn on the stove, add the sugar and salt, and stir for 5 minutes. Cook over low heat for 60 minutes.
Turn off the heat, add the coffee, which must be finely ground, stir and leave to infuse for at least 20 minutes.
Filter the milk again, put it in a blender, add the whiskey, corn starch and cream and blend for 1 minute. If you don’t have a large blender, put everything in a bowl or a plastic jar and use the hand blender, nothing changes, as long as the cream is well blended.
Skip the boiling milk step and use condensed milk and powdered spices if you are lazy.
Now all that remains is to bottle your homemade Baileys in a bottle with the lid and store it in the refrigerator. Obviously, before bottling the whiskey liqueur, sterilize the bottle by boiling it in boiling water for at least 10 minutes. With these doses, you should be able to produce 1.5 liters of liqueur, therefore 2 bottles.
Cocktail to make
B-52.
