Caudle or Caudel (Custard Tart) is a traditional English recipe from the late Middle Ages for a drink of ale, wine or milk thickened with eggs and grains and flavoured with spices that was often given to invalids. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic English version of: Caudle or Caudel.
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Caudle/Caudel is a thickened drink, typically served to invalids and made from a base of wine, milk or ale thickened with flour, oatmeal or egg, sweetened and spiced. Caudle is first known from around 1250 and is continually prepared (and mentioned in recipes) up to and including Francatelli's version in Victorian times (found in his A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes 1846 to be precise). The version presented here is a classic made of ale thickened and fortified with eggs and wheat starch that's sweetened with honey or sugar and spiced with saffron. This version comes from Book IV of the Laud MS 533 from the Bodleian collection c. 1440.
Original Recipe:
Caudele (from Book IV of the Laud MS 533 c. 1440)
Caudele.—Nym eyren, & sweng wel to-gedere
chauf ale & do therto
lie it with amydo,
do therto a porcio of sugur, or a perty of hony, & a perti of safro; boille hit, & ȝif hit forth.
Caudle
Take up eggs and beat well together
warm ale and add to them
mix it with wheat starch
add to it a portion of sugar, or a portion of honey and a portion of saffron; boil it and serve it forth.
Modern Redaction:
In my redaction of the recipe I used a modern bottled ale (one of my own lightly-hopped brews). Note that the flavour would not be genuine as the medieval version would use plants and not hops as the bittering agent (hops did not arrive in the UK for use in brewing until the time of Henry VIII). I haven't had a chance to go foraging for ale herbs this summer so don't have a traditional medieval ale bottled this year.
Ingredients:
330ml ale
2 large eggs
1 tbsp wheat starch
3-5 tsp honey or sugar (or to taste)
pinch of saffron
Method:
Pace the ale in a saucepan and bring to just above blood heat. Crack the eggs into a heat-proof bowl then whisk together. Whilst still whisking pour over the warm ale. Beat the ale and eggs together then mix in the wheat starch. Beat to combine then pour back into the saucepan.
Set this over low-medium heat then keep heating and whisking, gradually bringing the ingredients to a boil.
Keep heating until the consistency becomes thick and frothy like milkshake. Add sugar to taste and a pinch of saffron.
Turn into a tankard or heat-proof glass and serve.
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