Amaretto advocaat lives or dies by a single number: 70°C. Above that temperature, the delicate bitter-almond notes of amaretto disappear within minutes, and the liqueur ends up tasting of nothing but egg yolk and cream rather than that warm almond-marzipan aroma we make the recipe for in the first place.
We have been making this liqueur for years as a gift for godchildren, neighbours and our mothers at Easter and Christmas. By now we know exactly when the mixing bowl runs too hot, why the sugar sometimes fails to dissolve properly, and why some batches turn grainy after three weeks in the fridge. The answers are all here, in the order we needed them ourselves.
Amaretto Advocaat with the Thermomix®
Ingredients 0 / 7 ✓
- 1 sachet vanilla sugar
- 100 g soft brown sugar
- 160 g double cream
- 90 g Doppelkorn (German grain spirit)
- 40 g amaretto
- 5 egg yolks
- 1 pinch ground cinnamon
Instructions 0 / 3
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1
Pulverise the sugar.
Add the vanilla sugar and sugar to the mixing bowl and pulverise for 20 seconds / speed 10.
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2
Heat all ingredients.
Add the remaining ingredients to the mixing bowl and heat for 6 minutes / 70°C / reverse direction / speed 4.
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3
Fill into bottles.
Fill into sterilised bottles and store in the fridge.
Video
Nutrition per serving
Why the amaretto goes in after heating
Amaretto carries its aroma in volatile bitter-almond compounds, chiefly benzaldehyde. These compounds are heat-sensitive and escape with the rising steam through the mixing bowl lid. If you add the amaretto at the start and heat everything together for six minutes at 70°C, you can smell it happening: the almond scent rises with the steam, and the finished liqueur lacks exactly the character that makes the recipe worth doing.
That is why we adapt the standard recipe at one point, without changing any of the quantities: first the egg yolks, double cream, Doppelkorn and pulverised sugar are emulsified and brought to setting temperature at 6 minutes / 70°C / reverse direction / speed 4. Only after that, once the mixing bowl has dropped back below 60°C, do the 40 g of amaretto go in and are stirred through at 30 seconds / speed 3. That way the almond aroma stays in the liqueur, where it belongs.
Why 70°C and not 80°C
Egg yolk starts to set at around 65°C and coagulates fully above 72°C. We are therefore working deliberately in a narrow window: hot enough for the liqueur to thicken and to reduce the risk of salmonella, but cool enough that the egg yolk does not scramble. The combination of 70°C for six minutes with reverse direction at speed 4 is what has worked most reliably across well over a hundred bottles for us.
Reverse direction here is not a detail but a requirement. Speed 4 in normal direction beats up the egg yolk structure and the cream, making the liqueur frothy rather than creamy. In reverse direction the blade rotates backwards without cutting. TM31 users: the 70°C setting is available and the process is identical.
Brown sugar pulverised, not stirred in as crystals
The 100 g of soft brown sugar and the vanilla sugar always go into the empty mixing bowl first and are pulverised at 20 seconds / speed 10. Skip this step and you will have a problem: brown sugar has slightly more residual moisture than white and tends not to dissolve fully at only 70°C. In the finished liqueur you can feel it on the tongue as a gritty texture, especially after three days in the fridge when the sugar crystallises at the bottom.
Using icing sugar dissolves in seconds, and reverse direction at 70°C is more than enough. We deliberately use brown sugar rather than white because its faint caramel note supports the almond depth of the amaretto. With white sugar the liqueur is sweeter but flatter.
What can go wrong with this liqueur
The liqueur tastes of plain advocaat with barely any almond
Classic overheating mistake. If you add the amaretto at the start and heat it for six minutes alongside everything else, you lose a large part of the almond aroma through the mixing bowl lid. Our fix: always add the amaretto after heating, let the mixing bowl cool below 60°C first, then stir through for just 30 seconds at speed 3.
The liqueur goes grainy after a few days
This happens when the mixing bowl climbed above 75°C and the egg yolk partially scrambled. You cannot see it when bottling, but in the fridge small curds separate from the liquid. Our fix: keep strictly to 70°C and pause to check if in doubt. If it does go grainy, strain through a fine sieve or a piece of muslin cloth and the liqueur is saved.
The liqueur is too thin, almost like milk
Usually the mixing bowl was not hot enough and the egg yolk did not set. Our fix: at the end of the six minutes check whether the mixture has noticeably thickened. If not, add another two minutes at 70°C. The liqueur also thickens further as it cools in the fridge, which is normal.
Variations we actually make
- With a real vanilla pod: Instead of vanilla sugar, split a Bourbon vanilla pod lengthways, scrape out the seeds and heat them with the other ingredients. Place the scraped pod in the bottle for 24 hours, then remove. Deeper vanilla note, less sweetness.
- With toasted flaked almonds: Toast 30 g of flaked almonds in a dry pan until golden, leave to cool, then place in the finished bottle in a small muslin bag or tea filter for two days. Amplifies the almond note without adding more alcohol.
- With an espresso shot: Stir in 20 g of very strong, cooled espresso together with the amaretto. The result sits between amaretto advocaat and an espresso martini. Very good served over vanilla ice cream.
- With less sweetness: If you prefer it less sugary, reduce to 80 g of brown sugar. Below 70 g the liqueur becomes noticeably thinner, because the sugar also contributes to the body.
What we serve it with
We rarely drink amaretto advocaat on its own. Almost always it is a topping. Poured over a scoop of vanilla ice cream, it makes a dessert in two minutes that looks like something from a patisserie. For a larger group, combine it with our classic advocaat with the Thermomix® and a glass of homemade egg punch, so everyone gets their preferred sweetness.
As a gift, the liqueur always goes out paired with a second small bottle. Once you start making liqueurs yourself, you want more. We recommend our gingerbread liqueur as a winter variation and our coconut liqueur for summer.
3 weeks in the fridge, stored in the dark
We fill the liqueur straight after blending into hot-rinsed, sterilised glass bottles with a swing-top lid. The finished amaretto advocaat keeps in the fridge at a constant 4 to 7°C for around four weeks. Technically it lasts longer, but we do not recommend it: with each extra week of storage the amaretto loses almond freshness, which is exactly the aroma we went to the trouble of preserving by adding it late.
Important: this liqueur contains raw egg yolk. Give it only to adults, not to pregnant women or young children. On gift labels we always write the bottling date and “keep refrigerated, use within 4 weeks”. Freezing does not work: when it thaws, the cream separates and the liqueur curdles irreversibly. The best drinking temperature is between 10 and 12°C, so take the bottle out of the fridge 30 minutes before serving.
What our recipe does differently from the Vorwerk version
Goes well with: Waffles, vanilla ice cream and Tiramisu.
You might also like: Burnt Almond Liqueur with the Thermomix®.
Most Thermomix® recipes for amaretto advocaat (Cookidoo, Rezeptwelt, Zaubertopf) put all the ingredients in the mixing bowl together and heat for 8 to 12 minutes at 70°C at speed 4 in normal direction. We do three things deliberately differently: the amaretto goes in after heating (preserving the almond aroma), we use reverse direction throughout (creamy rather than frothy), and we recommend a robust amaretto such as Disaronno Originale, because budget supermarket versions disappear completely under the cream. These three adjustments are the difference between “tastes like advocaat” and “tastes like almond marzipan”.
If you are looking for more homemade liqueurs from the mixing bowl, we have a growing collection on the site. We particularly recommend the classic advocaat, the gingerbread liqueur and the coconut liqueur.
