Straight to the recipe Tompouce is the Dutch version of mille-feuille. It is popular throughout the year, but on some days, it is almost traditional to eat this pastry. And on those days, the tompouce is not decorated with the customary pink glaze, but with orange glaze to emphasize the connection to our royal family…
Sweet pastry
Excellent almond cookies
Straight to the recipe In the Middle Ages, cookies were served during the banquet or the final course of a festive meal, along with fresh or preserved fruit and spiced wine. During the sixteenth century the Italians even started their meals with sweet cookies, according to the menus provided by Bartolomeo Scappi (Opera, 1570, see…
Dough – The basics
Straight to the list with basic recipes and historical recipes with dough Preparing dough is a question of touching and feeling. Basic ingredients are flour, water and salt. Eggs, butter and shortening can also be used, and instead of water other liquids can be added, like white wine. The recipes here are mostly based on…
Excellent cookies
This is a recipe for small but rich cookies. High tea is not customary in the Netherlands, but we do serve a biscuit or cookie with a cup of coffee or tea, in the morning as well as in the afternoon. At what time of the day would these cookies have been served in the eighteenth…
Quince pie
Straight to the recipe A very special pie from the sixteenth century There is a growing interest for vegetables and fruit from the past. Compared to, say the seventeenth century, the variety in apples, pears and plumbs has become less and less. Nowadays it is mainly those varieties that are easy to grow, have a high…
Puff pastry
On Coquinaria are several historical recipes for puff pastry. On this page is a modern version. While I was searching online I saw some recipes for puff pastry that are actually just for flaky dough. Puff pastry is a kind of flaky dough, but to make puff pastry it takes something extra. Because just folding…
White tourte, a favourite of Pope Julius III
Straight to the recipe Sweet Italian pastry from the sixteenth century In the Netherlands we are used to abdications. This year, 2013, our queen Beatrix will hand over the throne to her son Willem Alexander, as her mother Juliana did thirty three years ago, and her grandmother Wilhelmina in 1948. But an abdicating pope has not…
Traditional Dutch Banketletter
“Keep it simple: start with an I” The banketletter is one of the few traditional Dutch Christmas bakes, as most Dutch December bakes are actually done for the national children’s feast Sinterklaas on December 5th. Most people just buy it in the stores, and I must admit that it takes some work to make a…
Deep-fried braids(Dafâir)
Straight to the recipe An Arab recipe from the thirteenth century Arab pastry is delicious. Sweet and rich, but really delicious. This was already so in medieval times on, when sweet pastry was served after a meal. You can imagine that after a copious meal with a plethora of mouth-watering dishes the pastry had to be very…
Sponge cake for trifle
Straight to the recipe Mrs Beeton’s recipe Trifle is built on a layer of sponge cake. Since I have used Mrs Beeton‘s recipe for trifle from the Book of Household Management (1861, it was logical to use her recipe for sponge cake too. She even states explicitly that ‘leftover’ sponge cake can be used for trifle and pudding. The cake…
Ratafia
For Victorian trifle, but also excellent with tea or coffee Mrs Beeton uses two kinds of cookies with almonds in her recipe for trifle: macaroons and ratafias. Macaroons only contain sweet almonds, ratafia also contain a portion of bitter almonds. She provides recipes to make these at home in her Book of household management (recipes 1744 and 1745, on p.851…
Dutch speculaas with almond paste
Speculaasjes are good, speculaas with almond paste is better. The version bought in Dutch shops is often a little on the dry side, but maybe that is just me. The recipe on this page is enough for almost 4 pounds of very rich (=fat) stuffed speculaas. It is easy to make the half amount, however, even…
Speculaasjes – Traditional Dutch Cookies
Speculaas or speculoos is one of the Dutch culinary specialties. It is a spiced cookie, made with wooden forms or moulds. They are typically winterfood, and especially associated with the feast of ‘Sint Nicolaas’ or Saint Nicholas, the original Santa Claus. This feast is celebrated on 5 or 6 December. Speculaas is very old, the…
Sluberkens
Straight to the recipe Medieval pasties with bone marrow In 2006 I acquired the book Bones by Australian chef de cuisine Jennifer McLagan. The front cover has a splendid picture of roasted marrow bones. This led to my browsing through the editions of medieval cook books on my bookshelves to see whether anything interesting was done with marrow…
Cranberry-walnutbread
This is a really festive bread. It’s tasty, and looks merry with the little red berries. I like eating it with blue cheese, but with just butter it already is a treat. This recipe is inspired by the dried cranberries that are suddenly appearing in stores in November. And I love maple syrup, especially in…