Kandeel, the Dutch Hot Wine with Eggs of 1669
Reader ratingsRhenish wine and water thickened with beaten eggs and spiced with mace, nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves: kandeel from an Amsterdam cookbook of 1669.
- Recipe makes
- About 650 ml, 3 cups
- Prep
- Cook
- Total
Kandeel in an earthenware cup beside the pan it was whisked in, with whole nutmeg and mace.
The story behind the recipe
Kandeel is white wine and water, thickened with beaten eggs over the fire and sweetened and spiced with mace, nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves. This version is from De Verstandige Kock, “The Sensible Cook,” a Dutch cookbook printed in Amsterdam in 1667 and again in 1669, the years when New Netherland on the Hudson was turning into English New York.
Good to drink
The recipe is a single short paragraph and calls itself “a tasty kandeel.” Its wine is “Rinse-wijn,” Rhenish wine from the Rhine, and its eggs are beaten “without the haen,” the white cord in the egg. Once the spices are in, the book says plainly, “‘t is goet om te drincken”: it is good to drink. It also lists other uses: poured over a stewed hen as a sauce, with white bread in it to eat, or with butter. What the colony drank, from small beer to Barbados rum, is in What Did People Drink in New Netherland?
Read more about this recipe
Our version
The book gives a pint of water, a pint of wine and six eggs. A Dutch pint was roughly 0.6 liters, though measures varied from town to town, so we keep the proportion rather than the size: equal wine and water and about one egg to every 200 ml of liquid, rounded up to three eggs for half a liter. Sugar has no amount in the book; 30 grams is ours, and so are the spice amounts. A dry German Riesling stands in for Rhenish wine. The book heats the eggs and wine “until it comes to the boil”; we stop at 71 to 75°C, safe for the eggs and short of curdling, as in our ale caudle, the English cousin. The book says nothing about how it tasted. It comes out at about 4.5% ABV. For an alcohol-free drink from the same 1669 volume, make Currant Syrup and Water.
Om een leckere Kandeel te maken. Neemt een pint water / en een pint Rinse-wijn / en slaet 6 Eyeren heel kleen sonder de Haen / en roert het onder malkanderen / set het op ‘t vuur / tot het aen de koock komt / doeter dan wel Suyker / Foelie / Notemuskaet / Caneel / en Nagelen by / ‘t is goet om te drincken; sommige doen dat wel over een gestooft Hoen / voor saus / oock harst mender wel Witte-broot in / om te eeten / sommige doender wel Boter in.
Our translation: To make a tasty kandeel. Take a pint of water and a pint of Rhenish wine, and beat 6 eggs very small without the cord, and stir it together; set it on the fire until it comes to the boil; then put in sugar, mace, nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves. It is good to drink. Some pour it over a stewed hen as a sauce; also some put white bread in it, to eat; some put butter in it.
Recipe makes: About 650 ml, 3 cups
Ingredients
For About 650 ml, 3 cups. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for About 650 ml, 3 cups.
- Dry white wine, such as a German Riesling250 ml
- Water250 ml
- Large eggs3
- Sugar30 g
- Ground mace1 pinch
- Ground nutmeg1/4 metric tsp (5 ml per tsp)
- Ground cinnamon1/4 metric tsp (5 ml per tsp)
- Ground cloves1 pinch
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 250 ml dry white wine, such as a German Riesling
- 250 ml water
- 3 large eggs
- 30 g sugar
- 1 pinch ground mace
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 pinch ground cloves
Equipment
Saucepan
Whisk
Fine sieve
Instant-read thermometer
Instructions
Beat the eggs well, then pour them through the fine sieve into the saucepan to hold back the white cords, as the 1669 book directs.
Whisk in the water and the dry white wine a little at a time until smooth.
Set the pan over low heat and whisk constantly until it reaches 71 to 75°C on the thermometer and thickens to a thin custard, about 6 to 8 minutes. Never let it bubble; if it starts to steam hard, lift the pan off the heat and keep whisking.
Take the pan off the heat and whisk in the sugar, ground mace, ground nutmeg, ground cinnamon and ground cloves.
Pour into warmed cups and drink hot.
Nutrition
180calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- About 650 ml, 3 cups
- Servings
- 3
Estimated for one cup from USDA FoodData Central values for dry white wine, whole raw egg and granulated sugar; the spices add almost nothing.
Recipe notes
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the batch.
The book adds the sugar and spices after heating, so we do too; they dissolve in the hot kandeel in a few seconds.
Use the freshest eggs you can, or pasteurized eggs for anyone very young, old or pregnant. Make it just before drinking, and don’t reheat it once the eggs are in.
If it starts to curdle, take it off the heat at once, whisk hard and strain it.
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
De Verstandige Kock, in Het vermakelijck landt-leven (Amsterdam: Marcus Doornick, 1669), “Om een leckere Kandeel te maken”, p. 17; translation ours
See the original pages (scan at Internet Archive) (opens in a new tab)
Recipe details
- Drink family
- Hot Drinks
- Region
- Dutch
- Era
- 17th century
- Difficulty
- Intermediate
- Season
- Winter