Cheaut, Hot Almond Milk from a Medieval Kitchen
Reader ratingsBlanched almonds ground with water, strained, boiled once and sweetened with sugar and salt: the fifteenth-century almond caudle made without the ale.
- Recipe makes
- About 400 ml, 2 cups
- Prep
- Cook
- Total
Hot almond milk in a green-glazed earthenware cup, with ground almonds in a wooden bowl and a lump of sugar.
The story behind the recipe
A fifteenth-century cook who wanted an almond caudle without ale had a recipe on the same page: Cheaut de Almondes, blanched almonds ground with water, strained, boiled once, sweetened and salted, and served hot. In the manuscript it sits directly beneath a Caudell de Almondes made the same way with “goode ale.” Another manuscript calls it Chaudlet.
A caudle without the ale
A medieval caudle was a hot drink with enough body to count as a pottage, and the other almond caudles in these books are made with ale or wine. The older of the two manuscripts in Thomas Austin’s 1888 edition, Harleian MS. 279 from about 1430, grinds raw almonds and tempers them “with gode ale, and a lytil Water,” then serves the result “al hotte in maner of potage.” The Forme of Cury draws its almond caudle “up with wyne.”
Harleian MS. 4016, written about 1450, gives the ale version too, and then, as the very next recipe, a sober one. Its almonds are blanched and ground “with faire water,” drawn through a strainer, set on the fire to “boyle ones,” and sweetened with “sugur and salt,” to be served “hote.” Austin notes that the Douce manuscript names it “Chaudlet.” Another household book of the time, printed in 1882 as A Noble Boke off Cookry, has a near twin, its “hoot milk of almondes,” served with toasted bread in it.
Read more about this recipe
Ground almonds and a single boil
What these sources describe is a sweet, pale drink with the taste of almonds and a little salt, hot enough to steam. Almond milk rises and can catch on the pan as it boils, so stir and take it off the moment it comes up. Ready-ground almonds, sold for baking, make this a twenty-minute job; the medieval cook would have pounded whole ones. Why medieval kitchens kept almond milk on hand at all is a fish-day story, told with the cold version in Almond Milk, the Medieval Fast-Day Milk.
Recipe makes: About 400 ml, 2 cups
Ingredients
For About 400 ml, 2 cups. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for About 400 ml, 2 cups.
- Ground blanched almonds100 g
- Hot water500 ml
- Sugar1 metric tbsp (15 ml per tbsp)
- Fine sea salt1 pinch
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 100 g ground blanched almonds
- 500 ml hot water
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 pinch fine sea salt
Equipment
Blender or whisk
Fine sieve lined with muslin, or a nut-milk bag
Small saucepan
Instructions
Put the ground blanched almonds in a bowl or blender and pour over the hot water from a kettle, just off the boil. Whisk or blend for 1 minute, then leave to stand for 10 minutes.
Pour the mixture into the lined sieve over a saucepan and press it with the back of a ladle to push the milk through. Let the pulp cool until it’s comfortable to handle before you gather up the cloth and squeeze out the rest. The milk is reheated next, so it doesn’t matter if it cools.
Set the pan over medium heat and bring the almond milk just to the boil, stirring all the time. As soon as it rises, take it off the heat.
Stir in the sugar and fine sea salt, taste, and pour into cups while hot.
Nutrition
140calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- About 400 ml, 2 cups
- Servings
- 2
Roughly estimated from USDA FoodData Central values, assuming about 40 percent of the almonds’ calories pass into the milk and the pulp is discarded.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
Scale the ground almonds and hot water together; season each batch with sugar and salt to taste.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the batch.
Harleian MS. 4016 measures nothing, so we settled on 100 g of almonds to 500 ml of water, a tablespoon of sugar and a pinch of salt. “Boyle ones” is read here as bringing the milk to the boil a single time.
Whole blanched almonds work too: soak them for about 4 hours, then blend them with the water and strain as above.
The Noble Boke version sweetens with “sugur or Hony clarified” and puts toasted bread in the cup, which turns the drink into something nearer a sop.
Cheaut joins the other medieval drinks made without ale in Did Medieval People Really Drink Beer Instead of Water?.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; glassware, ice and timings need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
Thomas Austin (ed.), Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books: Harleian MS. 279 (ab. 1430), & Harl. MS. 4016 (ab. 1450) (London: N. Trübner & Co. for the Early English Text Society, 1888), pp. 16 and 96
Recipe details
- Drink
- Alcohol-free
- Drink family
- Hot Drinks
- Region
- British
- Era
- Medieval
- Base
- Almonds
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Season
- Winter