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All text and pictures of dishes are the intellectual property of
Coquinaria and may not be reproduced without permission and acknowledgement..
recipe
September/October 2007
How to bake fine cakes
A recipe from 18th century Holland.
Dutch
version of this recipe
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This is a recipe for luxurious small cakes or
cookies. In the Netherlands there is no high tea, but it is a custom to serve a
biscuit or cookie with a cup of coffie or tea, in the morning as well as in the
afternoon. Just one, because as you know we
Dutch are thrifty people! (although many Dutch do know how to be generous)
These cakes, at what time of the day were they served in the eighteenth century?
They were probably served at the end of a meal: according to De Volmaakte
Hollandsche Keuken-Meid (The Perfect Dutch Kitchenmaid) from 1746 the last
course of a meal for ten to twelve persons in a well-to-do family should consist
of a big cake, fruit, fresh cheese or custard, saucers with butter, sugar
and cinnamon, and all kinds of small pastries and cookies.
The Dutch name for these cookies is 'kaakjes'. It is derived from the English
'cake'. Later, in the nineteenth century, a 'kaakje' would indicate a dry biscuit.
The original recipe
The recipe is taken from
De volmaakte Hollandsche Keuken-meid
[...], written by "Eene voornaame Mevrouwe, Onlangs in ‘s Gravenhage
Overleeden" (a distinguished lady, passed away recently in 's-Gravenhage).
The first edition was in 1746, and it was reprinted several times, for the last
time in 1857. In the year of its first appearance there was already an
appendix that was published separately, the
Aanhangzel, with 285 more recipes. The Dutch publisher A.W. Sijthoff printed
a facsimile edition in 1965 and 1973, of the fifth edition of Volmaakte
Keuken-Meid from 1761 and of the Aanhangzel from 1763. This is the
edition I have used, but in the
online edition
of 1752 (that is the third edition) the recipe is exactly the same, the only
difference is the type. The dnbl presents the
online edition as the one from 1746, but that is not correct.
For the modern Dutch, the Dutch language eighteenth century presents little dificulties, but
even for them the terms used for weight and liquids will pose problems. The
metric system was introduced in The United Kingdom of the Netherlands
(Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg) in 1816. Prior to the metric system each
region had its own set of measurements. In the preface to the Aanhangzel
is explained that the Amsterdam pint is used, while in the
Volmaakte Hollandsche Keuken-meid the Haagse pint, which has 50% more
content, is used. And what is
ambergrys?
Fyne kaaks, hoe men die bakken zal.
Neemt een half vierdevat bloem van Tarwe Meel, het beste dat men krygen
kan ; stampt het heel fyn, met een weinigje zout daar onder, een half loot
nagelen, een half loot foelie, een half loot note-muscaat en een half once
kaneel, doet dit gemengd met drie vierendeel poejer-suiker onder het Meel,
en kneedt het ter degen door met anderhalf pond booter : doet ‘er dan by
een mingelen Room met een pintje gist, met 12 eijeren, acht zonder het wit
en vier met het wit, een weinigje Roozewater en Ambergrys : als het wel
doorkneed en gerezen is, dan moet men ‘er nog 3 ponden korenten en een
pond rosynen zonder korrels, dooreen, wel fyn gesneeden by doen : Maakt
het deeg tot Kaakjes en zet het drie uuren te bakken in een laauwe Oven ;
dan haald het ‘er uit en bestryktze met het wit van een ei en rosewater,
en met suiker bestrooid, zet ze nog eens in den Oven om de suiker te doen
kandilizeren, is delicaat om te eeten. |
Fine cakes, how to bake them.
Take a half fourthbarrel (measurement for wheat, about 7 litres) flour of wheat, the best one can get. Pound
it very finely, with a little salt, a half 'loot' (1 'loot' = ½
ounce = 13.5 gram) cloves, a half loot mace, a half
ounce (1 ounce = 27 gram) nutmeg and a half ounce cinnamon. Add this, tempered with drie
quarterpound powdered sugar, to the flour, and knead it well with one and a
half pound (1 pound = 430 gram) butter. Then add a 'mingel' (1 mingel =
1,17 litre) cream with a pint (1 pint = 0,585 litre) of yeast, 12 eggs,
eight without the white and four with the white, a little rosewater and
ambergris. When it is kneaded through and risen well enough, then add 3
pounds currants and one pound raisins without pips, finely chopped, to it.
Make the dough into little cakes/cookies and set it to bake for three
hours in a tepid oven. Then take them from it and coat them with the white
of an egg and rosewater, and sprinkle with sugar. Put them in the oven
once more to caramellize the sugar, is delicate to eat. |
The modern adaptation of the recipe:
Printout
version
In the modern adaptation I completely left out the
ambergris. Except for the unlikely event that you find a lump on it on the beach
yourself, it is very difficult to come by, and very expensive at that (80 euro per gram).
For decoration I have chozen an icing rather letting the sugar brown in the
oven.
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List of ingredients:
200 gram (1 2/3 cup) flour
75 gram (2/3 cup) powdered sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
in all 1 tsp. ground cloves, mace and nutmeg (1:1:1)
150 gram (2/3 cup) butter at room temperature
2.75 deciliter (9 fl.oz) cream
1.25 deciliter (1/2 cup) fresh brewer's yeast, or 15 gram
(1/2 ounce) baker's
yeast (dissolved in 1.25/1/2 cup deciliter tepid water), or dry yeast (4 gram/1 tsp., and 1.25 deciliter/1/2 cup
tepid water)
1 egg
2 egg yolks
1 Tbsp. rosewater
400 gram (3 1/2 cup) currants
125 gram (3/4 cup) raisins
frosting:
for 10 gram (1 Tbsp.) egg white
1/2 tsp.
rosewater
as much powdered sugar to produce a good glaze (50 to 60 gram/1/2 to 2/3 cup)
optionally some food colouring, silver pellets or sugared flowers
Preparation in advance:
Make the dough by mixing flour, spices, salt and butter, and adding cream, yeast
with water, egg, egg yolks and rosewater whilst kneading. The dough will be
fairly liquid, more like a thick batter. Cover with a damp cloth, leave to rise
in a warm spot. Depending on the kind of yeast you used, this can take from one
hour (baker's yeast) to up to several hours (brewer's yeast). In my previous
house I always put the bowl with dough in the boiler closet. You can also
preheat the oven to 50gr C (120dg F), let it cool slightly (use a cheap oven thermometer),
and place the bowl in the oven with the door slightly ajar (I simply put a bent
fork between the door and the oven, that's enough). Chop the currants and
raisins, add them to the batter after it has risen, and leave for another hour.
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Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 120-130 grC (250-265dg F). Be careful not to heat the oven
higher (use
the oven thermometer), because the currants and raisins will burn and turn
bitter if the temperature is too high.
Cover a baking tin covered with baking paper or a silicon sheet. Spread out the batter in a thin layer (one to two
centimeters, half to one inch), bake in the middle of the oven until the cake
has turned a nice golden brown colour. Depending on your oven and how thick the
layer of batter is, it will take two to three hours.
Cut out small cookies, using a cookie cutter. Let the cookies cool on a
cooling-rack.
Prepare the frosting by tempering egg white and rosewater with powdered sugar
(or icing sugar), and if you like some drops of food colouring. Keep stirring
until you get a smooth and evenly coloured paste. Paste the cookies with a thin
layer of frosting, let dry, and apply a second layer if you want to. I prefer to
make small amounts of frosting at a time, because it gets hard very quickly,
and, what to do with what is left over? Much to sweet to just eat.
You can also finish the cookies as described in the original recipe: paste the
still hot cookies with egg white and rosewater, sprinkle with powdered sugar,
and put them back into the oven until the sugar has melted and coloured
slightly. But I had more fun with the frosting.
To serve:
Why not a tray of cookies to accompany a cup of tea or coffee? Or dress them up
as christmas cookies.
The cookies will keep several days simply out on a tray. If you put tham in a
tin, they will become too soft. You can also freeze the cookies, and frost them
after thawing.
Ingredients
All descriptions of ingredients
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Ambergris -
Not to be confused with amber that is a resin. Just like musk (a secretion of
the gonads of the musk deer and some other animals), ambergris was used in
medieval Arab dishes, but now they are mainly ingredients for perfumes. You
could say ambergris is a pellet of the sperm-whale. It is a waxlike substance in
which indigestible remains like the beaks of squid are encapsuled. From time to
time the sperm-whale emits large pellets, just to be rid of them. 'Fresh'
ambergris smells of shit (manure, if you think that sounds better) and has a
dark colour. Influenced by sunlight, salt water, and air the ambergris matures.
It looks lighter, grayish, and the smell gets to resemble isopropanol (that is
what
Wikipedia says). Ambergris
is one of the ingredients of Chanel no.5.
You can find ambergris washed ashore on ocean beaches, or fish it up from the
sea. If you are lucky. If you want to buy some, prepare to pay a lot. There is a
vegetable substitute, labdanum resinoid, the purified resin of the
cistus rose (Cistus labdanifer), that can be used instead of ambergris
(this also happens in the perfume industry).
Bewer's yeast - Until the fifteenth century fermenting
was caused by wild yeasts. Bread was baked with sourdough. Beer (or ale), that
was already brewed in prehistoric times by the Egyptians, was fermented with the
help of wild yeasts. From the fifteenth to the seventeenth century the yeasts
used for brewing were refined by adding the froth of a previous brew to the wort
(malted grain, the basis of the beer). In that time only top fermenting beer was
produced, hence the yeast in the froth.
Brewer's yeast was also used to bake. Baker's yeast became available in the
middle of the nineteenth century. It was considered a great improvement, because
the quality of the yeast was more consistent, and it tasted less bitter. Whether
brewer's yeast or fresh baker's yeast is easily available depends on where you
live. You can also use dried yeast, which will need less rising time. Just see
what you can get. Only, don't confuse real brewer's yeast with the health
tablets.
Bibliography
The editions below
are in my possession. Links refer to available editions.
All books mentioned on this site
De volmaakte Hollandsche Keuken-meid, Onderwyzende Hoe men
allerhande Spyzen, Confituren en
Nagerechten, zonder ongemeene kosten, zelfs voor de Roomsgezinden op
Visdagen,en in de Vasten, gezond en smakelyk kan toebereiden : Hoe men alles
tegen de winter inlegt. Wat men in de Slachttyd doen moet : En hoe men Mol
en versch Bier des zomers goed kan houden. [...] Anoniem
verschenen (door "Eene voornaame Mevrouwe, Onlangs in ‘s Gravenhage Overleeden"
(Vijfde druk, 1761) recept 11, p.23.
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This page was updated on
23-07-09 (d-m-y).
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All text and pictures of dishes are the intellectual property of
Coquinaria and may not be reproduced without permission and acknowledgement..
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