Easy Irish Cream Recipe

I love Irish Cream – more commonly known as Bailey’s!  I love it in my coffee, on the rocks, by itself, or in mixed drinks.

We made Limoncello in 2012 and gave bottles as Christmas gifts and I wanted to make a different liquor to continue the tradition.  I came across this recipe on Pinterest and gave it a try.  After doing a side by side taste test with Bailey’s we tweaked a few ingredients and came up with:

Line up of ingredients

Ingredients 

• 1 cup strong coffee (if I had coffee I would add a teaspoon of instant espresso to it, if not a heaping teaspoon to a cup of water)
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 1 Heaping Tablespoon dark cocoa (I used Ghirardelli Ground Chocolate Cocoa)
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1  14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
• 2 1/4 cups Irish whiskey (I used Jameson or Bushmills)

Directions

1.  Bring the coffee to a gentle simmer in a medium saucepan.
2.  Add the cream, cocoa, sugar, honey and extracts, and whisk thoroughly.
3.  Simmer over low heat for about 20 minutes, whisking frequently, until the mixture begins to thicken.
4.  Remove the saucepan from the heat;  whisk in the sweetened condensed milk.
5.  Transfer the mixture to a heat-safe bowl, and set aside to cool for a while (approx. 20 minutes)
6.  Whisk in the whiskey until completely blended.
7.  Store in the refrigerator in a lidded container or decorative bottle.  Serve over ice, straight up, or in coffee.

Reminder:  This beverage has no preservatives and isn’t shelf stable.
 It must be kept refrigerated and shake well before serving (the chocolate has a tendency to settle to the bottom.)

The Bailey’s recipe is quite guarded so this is our best guess based on taste.  The recipe that I modified included a 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract and overpowered the taste.  I scratched it from recipe and increased the chocolate and the whiskey.  Our version is much smoother than Bailey’s and I believe that it is because of the high quality whiskey.  I considered using a lower shelf whiskey but I could not find one made in Ireland and I wanted to stay true to “Irish” cream.

How do you like to drink Irish Cream?  Have you made a liqueur before?

Cheers,

Amy

Check out these posts about cocktails