So, one night the fam was sitting around, and something we were watching on TV prompted someone to say, “A glass of Baileys sure would be nice.” Everybody agreed. But we had none. A quick DuckDuckGo! search produced a number of copycat recipes, and we had all the ingredients on hand. In fact, we went one further. Here’s our final recipe. Trust us, it’s even better. And it’s completely healthy and keto-compliant. Well, no, not really.
Ingredients (for your own sake, go for quality here):
4 fl oz (118 ml) heavy cream
12 fl oz (355 ml) half & half
1 can (14 oz - 395 ml) sweetened condensed milk
1 can/jar (14-15 fl oz - 414-444 ml) dulce de leche. This is the “special sauce” in our version of the liqueur. We’ve tried a lot of different brands, because we also make a dulce de leche ice cream. Argentine brands are better. But homemade is best. Use organic sweetened condensed milk to make it.
3 tablespoons 100% cocoa or cacao (or chocolate syrup if you must). We think high quality cocoa is better, because its chocolate flavors are more complex than even the best cacao. We like Valrhona (French) or Perugina Amaro (Italian). Just don’t use baking chocolate. This is arguably the critical flavor in the liqueur. Don’t shortchange it.
1 teaspoon instant coffee granules
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond or hazelnut extract
1 cup (400 ml) Irish whiskey (go for quality here; Irish whiskey has a clean profile, so the better you use, the smoother your final product. Some recipes call for almost twice as much. We found that produced too much bite.)
Directions::
Place ingredients in a blender. Blend on low speed for about 10 seconds and slowly ramp up to medium-high. No need to blend any longer than 30-40 seconds. You don’t want to curdle anything and you’re not trying to whip it up with air. Strain through a fine mesh into a glass container. This is a thick, velvety smooth liquid. You may decide you want a little less or more heavy cream or half & half to get the consistency to your liking; the 3:1 ratio above works with our local, organic dairy stock. If you can wait, it’s definitely better chilled for a couple of hours. But if you can’t, you’ll survive.
