Custard with ratafia

Straight to the recipe

A delicious dessert from the eighteenth century

Vla (  ), a kind of custard, is very popular in the Netherlands as dessert, but it is seldom home-made. Industrial custard is made with sugar and carbohydrates, but no eggs. How different it was during the eighteenth century! Look at the recipe below and set aside any cholesterol-related fears. Just prepare it, and taste a really delicious custard. The article about Vla on wikipedia concerns itself only with the Dutch industrial version.

On this page are four recipes for ‘modern’ custard. And other historical custard-like recipes on this site are Zabaglione (Italian, fifteenth century) and Crème brûlée (French, seventeenth century).
On the left you see a picture of a milkmaid with her dogcart from the nineteenth century. Since not everyone had a dairy cow grazing in the back yard, the milk necessary for making custard was probably bought from the milkmaid. Already at the end of the fourteenth century the Ménagier de Paris (from the cookbook with the same title, see the recipes for mustard and hypocras) complained about fraudulent milkmaids who adulterated their milk with water.

Vlade, vla and vlaai, a short history

Originally, from the fourteenth to sixteenth century, vlade, vlaeye and vla referred to the same thing: a thin, broad cake or pastry, often with candied fruits (see the MNW, the large online Middle-Dutch dictionary). During the eighteenth century the shortest version vla came to mean a specific dish, according to the WNT (the even larger modern Dutch dictionary) “a liquid dessert, eaten cold, prepared with milk, a thickener and various other ingredients” .  The Dutch cookbook De Volmaakte Hollandsche keukenmeid (‘The perfect Dutch kitchen maid’ ) from 1746 contains several recipes for vlade (with redcurrants, lemon, cherries, rosewater, and a curious baked dish with ambergris and orange), De Nieuwe, Welervarene Utrechtsche Keuken-meid (‘ The new, well-experienced kitchenmaid from Utrecht’ ,1771) offers Akense vlade (‘custard from Aachen’ with cinnamon), Engelse vlade (‘English custard’  with candied fruit) and vlade with almonds, and with berries. The Nieuwe Vaderlandsche Kookkunst (‘New patriotic culinary art’ ,1796) has three recipes with vla: with lemon, cherries and macaroons or (more probably) ratafia. That last recipe was absolutely delicious. It is remarkable that in all those recipes for vla there is only one recipe (the almondvla from the Utrechtsche Keuken-meid) that does not use eggs as a thickening agent. The modern vlaaiis closest to the original medieval vlade: “een plat, rond gebak, bedekt of gevuld met compote of rijst […] dat in den oven gebakken is” (WNT lemma Vlade I.1.b, translation: a flat, round pastry, covered or filled with compote or rice […] which is baked in the oven). In The Netherlands there are shops that specialize in this kind of pastry, a regional specialty of Limburg, the most southern province.

So … macaroons or ratafia?

The recipe on this page is for a custard with ‘bitterkoekjes’. The Dutch language does not have separate words for cookies with sweet almonds and cookies with a percentage of bitter almonds. Even the cookies made with just sweet almonds are called ‘bitter cookies’. Both kinds have a special status in the kitchen: they serve as ingredient in other dishes like the custard below, or as a garnish. The cookies are made using almonds, sugar and egg whites, sometimes rose water or orange blossom water is added. The cookies are baked in a temperate oven, they must remain light-coloured. In the United States, the Netherlands and Germany grated coconut is added to, or replaces, the almonds. These cookies are called cocos macaroons (Dutch: ‘kokosmakronen’).
The oldest recipes for macaroons date from the seventeenth century. These contain only sweet almonds. From the early eighteenth century onward a version with a large percentage of bitter almonds was popular in England (Alan Davidson, OCF), these were called ratafia (Italian: ‘amaretti’). These were used like macaroons in dishes and as garnish. One could buy them ready-made at the confectioner’s, as Mrs.  Isabella Beeton describes in her Book of Household Management from 1861 (p.851): “We have given a recipe for making these cakes [i.e. macaroons], but we think it almost or quite as economical to purchase such articles as these at a good confectioner’s.” Mrs Beeton continues with a recipe for ratafia, in which the ratio bitter almonds/sweet almonds is 1 to 2. One cannot help but wonder whether those cookies were healthy, given the cyanide which is present in bitter almonds (see below). In the Lexikon Lebensmittel und Ernährung (‘Lexicon of ingredients and diet’) from 1989 I found that 5% is the maximum percentage of bitter almonds that is allowed, so the ratio is 1 to 20. (By the way, ratafia is also the name of a cordial, see wikipedia).
Several recipes for macaroons also contain musk and/or ambergris. These are aromatic substances of animal origin that were used in eighteenth-century cuisine (see also this recipe). Today these substances (or alternatives or synthetic versions) are still used in fragrances.

The original recipe

This recipe is from Nieuwe vaderlandsche kookunst (‘New national culinary art’, 1796), resp. p.131 and 130. A very nice facsimile edition of this book was published in 1976 (see bibliography). The cookbook is described in greater detail in the recipe for Lamb Chops Pastry. Other recipes from this delicious cookbook: Quince Jelly and Black Salsify with Parsley Sauce.

Modern adaptation of the recipe

Following Mrs Beeton I decided to use macaroons from my confectioner’s. Mind that you buy real almond cookies, and not the cheaper version with apricot kernels. Because the cookies already contain sugar, I have refrained from adding extra. The original recipe doesn’t do that either. The custard remains a little gritty because of the cookie crumbs.
By the way, there’s nothing wrong with apricot kernels as a substitution for almonds. They belong to the same plant family, and are both drupes. But I do wonder why the ordinary consumer can’t buy those obviously cheaper apricot kernels instead of almonds, while industries can. The solution is: eat lots of apricots when they are in season, and save the kernels!
Dessert for 4 persons; preparation in advance  10 minutes; preparation 5 to 15 minutes.

125 gr/4.5 oz. macaroons or ratafia
5 dl (1 pint) milk
3 or 4 whole eggs and 3 or 4 egg yolks
whole macaroons as decoration

Preparation in advance

Pound the cookies in a mortar, or place them in a (clean) plastic bag and roll over them with a rolling pin or glass bottle. Add the crumbs to the milk in a pan and bring to the boil. Simmer for five minutes.

Preparation

Beat the eggs and yolks until they are frothy. Add a little of the hot milk to the eggs, keap beating. Add more and more hot milk, all the while stirring or whisking, until the mixture is hot. Then pour this into the pan. You can use a bain marie if you are afraid of curdling the custard. Keep stirring until the custard has thickened. Since cooking an egg takes several minutes, do not be worried if it takes a few minutes for the custard to thicken, and keep stirring. If you use an electric hand mixer, you won’t need a bain marie, and the cooking time will be shorter.
The endresult will be a creamy custard. Pour into a bowl immediately, to prevent the custard from overcooking in the still hot pan.

To serve

This custard tastes quite well when still warm, but according to the cookbook it is to be eaten cold, meaning at roomtemperature or a little below that. When the custard is cooling, a skin will form on top. Some love to eat it, but most people I know abhor it. So, to prevent this skin from forming, just cover the custard with plastic foil directly on it as soon as it is out of the pan.
Do not serve this custard straight out of the refridgerator. First of all, this appliance did not exist at the time of the original recipe, and secondly: the colder you serve a sweet dish, the more sugar it will need to provide a sweet taste.

Ingredients

All descriptions of ingredients

Almonds, bitter

In oldfashioned detective novels, before everything was solved with computers, the hero would kneel over the body and announce that there was an almond smell. The cause of death was clear: poisoning with cyanide. And indeed, bitter almonds contain cyanide, and it is not healthy to consume unprocessed bitter almonds. But they do contain just that acerbic taste that saves good marzipan from dull sweetness. If you make marzipan that will be eaten in large quantities, like the marzipan figurines that are so popular in The Netherlands at the Saint Nicholas Feast, it is best to use almond essence. If you just cover your christmas cake with a thin layer of marzipan, it won’t hurt to use a bitter almond or two in a pound of sweet almonds. Bitter almonds can be bought easily in Europe, but in the US they are a banned substance (while weapons are freely available, isn’t that strange?).

Musk

Aromatic substance from animal origin that is now used mainly in perfumes and fragrances. The Arab cuisine made use of it in the kitchen during the Middle Ages as a spice. In Europe musk was in culinary use during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is practically impossible to buy musk, and that is a good thing. Musk is obtained by killing the musk deer, which is now almost extinct. So the industry now mainly uses synthetic musk, and the kitchen can do well without it.

Bibliography

The editions below were used by me. Links refer to available editions.

• Isabella Beeton, Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management (2011, new edition of the 1861 text).
• Alan Davidson, Tom Jaine The Oxford Companion to Food (División Academic). (Oxford, 2006; link goes to the third revised edtion of 2014).
• Dr. Karl Herrmann, Lexikon Lebensmittel und Ernährung. Ceres Verlag-Rudolph-August Oetker KG, Bielefeld, 1989.
• Nieuwe vaderlandsche kookkunst, Bevattende een volledig en grondig onderricht, om, naar den hedendaagschen smaak, toe te bereiden allerleie soorten van spyzen […], door twee in dit vak zeer ervarene huishoudsters. (New Dutch culinary arts) Johannes Allart, Amsterdam, 1797. Facsimile editie uitg. C. de Vries-Brouwers, Amsterdam/Antwerpen, 1976. Text (Dutch) online.
• De volmaakte Hollandsche Keuken-meid, Onderwyzende Hoe men allerhande Spyzen, Confituren enNagerechten, 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. […] Anonymous (The perfect Dutch kitchen-maid (=cook), by “A distinguished Lady, recently passed away in The Hague” (1761, 5th edition, facsimile A.W. Sijthoff 1973). Online version. (Jan Willem Claus van Laar) (first edition, Amsterdam, 1746).

Custard with macaroons or ratafia from the 18th century
© Author Christianne Muusers