Imagine limoncello: cool, refreshing, sweet-tart limoncello poured straight from the freezer into a waiting tumbler. Now imagine it creamy. Sounds pretty good, right?! I will be starting a batch of holiday gift-giving ASAP. Care to join me?
I have inherited the most amazing aunt and uncle from my husband. They go to the opera, they have a wine cellar, they travel to Italy, they love food. In short, they are my kind of people. The other night at dinner, my aunt-in-law started describing something they'd had in Italy: a creamy milk-based version of limoncello. She said it was like Baileys but with lemons, and she hadn't been able to find it here in the States.
The wheels immediately started turning. Of course. A bit of research later and I discovered that this creamy version of limoncello is quite easy to make at home. You steep lemon peels in grain alcohol for anywhere from a week to...well, as long as you'd like. The alcohol just gets better with time.
Once the alcohol is infused to your liking, you just combine it with milk and sugar. Bottle, chill, and enjoy!
I'm going to get a batch of this going sometime in the next month so the lemons and alcohol have a good long time to steep before the holidays arrive. This will also give me some time to scrounge up some pretty bottles to store it in.
• Crema di Limoncello from Garrett McCord of Vanilla Garlic (Pictured above)
• Have Your Limoncello, and Eat It Too from NPR: Kitchen Window
• Creamy Limoncello from Epicurious
Have you ever come across creamy limoncello before or tried making it yourself?
Related: Milk and Booze! How to Make Sweet Milk Liqueur
(Image: Elise Bauer of Simply Recipes via Vanilla Garlic)
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That looks delightful. Does anyone have a recipe for the non-creamy limoncello that they like? I tried the Martha Stewart recipe and it was very thick and syrupy. Is it supposed to be that way and I should cut it with club soda?
How well does this keep with the milk in it?
It keeps really well because you keep it in the freezer.
We not only fell in love with creamy limoncello a few years ago, we experimented with other citrus last year. Blood oranges were the clear favorite for a more dessert type beverage - it is an alcoholic dreamsicle. http://katedjupe.com/blood-orangecello
Giada de Laurentis has a good limoncello recipe. Hers is made with limes, but you could easily swap them for lemons.
It is pretty sweet and syrupy, but that's how all the limoncello I have had has been. I always expect it to have a little lemon drop tang, which it never does.
The Giada recipe I have made and liked uses lemons:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/limoncello-recipe/index.html
Be sure to make the limoncello cheesecake squares too, they are awesome!
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/limoncello-cheesecake-squares-recipe/index.html
It is definitely syrupy, but you can experiment with your sugar and water amounts to adjust to your taste. I don't like to drink it straight either.
I buy organic lemons for most recipes, and when I don't need the peel, I freeze it until I have enough to make limoncello.
@meredithvp - Many of the recipes I found for crema di limoncello also mention that you can make regular non-creamy limoncello by just substituting the milk with water.
oh how I love you for this recipe. We have a restaurant here in California. http://www.giuseppesrestaurant.com/ if you are ever in San Luis Obispo, and they have the most delicious crema limoncello. It is made by the owner and the bartender always treats my husband and me to it after our dinner as an aperitif.
There's actually a company here in Arkansas that makes it. I'm not sure how widely it's available, but it's called Lombardi's Cream of Limoncello. It's all kinds of delicious.
When the house my friends rented was foreclosed on a few years ago, I got 100 lemons off their tree while helping them move! I turned that into two huge batches of both regular and crema di limoncello. They are both amazing, but the crema is definitely the favorite. I let the lemons steep in the alcohol for about 6 months before taking the next step and the time was definitely worth it. Also, especially with regular limoncello, the more time you let it rest the better it gets. After a year in the freezer it was exponentially better than it had been when I first bottled it. It's also nice to have extra bottles in the freezer b/c they make a great hostess/birthday/anniversary etc gift. Good luck on your various projects, everyone- it will definitely be worth it!
p.s. NOTE WELL- make sure you use pure white sugar if you want to preserve the beautiful lemon yellow color. I used organic sugar and, alas, my limoncello turned an odd yellowy-brown color. It was still delicious but not nearly as pretty as it could have been. It wasn't as noticeable in the crema since the milk dulls the color.
I can't believe nobody mentioned Alton Brown's limoncello recipe.
Hey, Alton Brown has a limoncello recipe(!)
:-)
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/limoncello-recipe/index.html
What is grain alcohol & where do you get it?
I just use 100 proof vodka for mine. Soak lemon peels for at least 6 weeks, longer if you have the time. Then mix 1:1 with simple syrup. I've also added the lemon juice back in if I wanted a tarter, slightly cloudy lemoncello.
Now I'm going to have to try the crema version.