Quince Paste with Honey (1450)
Reader ratingsQuince paste with honey, the chared coneys of about 1450: quinces boiled soft in malt wort, cooked down with honey and pepper, spiced with ginger, galingale and cinnamon and boxed.
- Recipe makes
- About 900 g, 30 squares
- Prep
- Cook
- Total
Leave the paste for a day to set before cutting.
Chared coneys, a quince paste with honey and spices, in a wooden box.
The story behind the recipe
The third course of Henry IV’s coronation feast has “Quyncys in comfyte” on it, preserved quinces, as Thomas Austin glossed it when he printed the bill of fare in 1888. The cookery book that holds the bill bakes its quinces whole in pastry and names a “charde quynce” only in passing, but its companion manuscript, Harleian MS. 4016, written about 1450, has chared coneys. Austin’s footnote reads the name as “Char de coynes, quince marmalade?”
What were chared coneys?
The recipe is for a large batch: thirty quinces and ten warden pears, pared and cored and boiled in good wort, the sweet malt liquor that becomes ale. They are pounded in a mortar, thinned with a little wine if needed and strained. The fruit then cooks with clarified honey and three ounces of pepper, stirred with two stirrers “for sitting to,” so it doesn’t stick, until thick. Ginger, galingale and cinnamon go in off the heat, and the paste is packed in a box and dusted with more ginger and cinnamon. The cook adds that it “is comfortable for a mannys body, And namely fore the Stomak,” and that sugar can replace the honey for a white paste.
Harleian MS. 4016 dates from about 1450, half a century after the feast, so this is a later English cook’s way with the quinces on the bill.
Read more about this recipe
Making it today
We make it with quinces alone, at about a tenth of the size. Two spoonfuls of barley malt extract in the water stands in for wort. Three ounces of pepper to forty fruit works out to about a tablespoon for a kilo of quinces; we use a teaspoon, a third of the manuscript’s rate; add more to taste. Galingale, a root like ginger, is sold ground in Asian groceries as galangal.
Serve it in squares with the slices of Leche Lumbard, Spiced Date Slices (1430), two of the feast’s sweet dishes side by side. The bill of fare, course by course, is in What Was Served at Henry IV’s Coronation Feast?
Chared coneys, or chardwardon. Take a quarter of clarefied hony, iij. vnces of pouder peper, and putte bothe to-gidre; ...
Recipe makes: About 900 g, 30 squares
Ingredients
For about 900 g, 30 squares. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for about 900 g, 30 squares.
Quince paste
- Quinces1 kg
- Barley malt extract2 tbsp
- Honey400 g
- Finely ground black pepper1 tsp
- Ground ginger, for the paste1/2 tsp
- Ground galingale1/2 tsp
- Ground cinnamon, for the paste1/2 tsp
To finish
- Ground ginger, for dusting1/4 tsp
- Ground cinnamon, for dusting1/4 tsp
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 1 kg quinces
- 2 tbsp barley malt extract
- 400 g honey
- 1 tsp finely ground black pepper
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger, for the paste
- 1/2 tsp ground galingale
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, for the paste
- 1/4 tsp ground ginger, for dusting
- 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon, for dusting
Equipment
Large saucepan- Food processor or food mill
- Heavy wide pan, about 4 liters
- Long wooden spoon
- Shallow box or dish, about 20 x 15 cm, lined with parchment
Instructions
Peel the quinces, cut them in quarters and cut out the cores.
Put them in the large saucepan with the malt extract and enough water to cover. Simmer, partly covered, for 30 to 40 minutes, until very soft.
Drain the quinces, keeping a little of the liquid, and purée them until smooth, adding a little of the liquid if the purée is too thick to turn.
Put the purée in the heavy wide pan with the honey and pepper. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly with the long wooden spoon and scraping the bottom, for 40 to 50 minutes, until the paste is deep amber, very thick and leaves a clear trail across the bottom of the pan. It spits as it thickens, so keep your hand and arm covered.
Take the pan off the heat and stir in the ginger for the paste, galingale and cinnamon for the paste.
Spread the paste in the lined box, smooth the top and leave it uncovered in a cool, dry place for 24 hours, until firm.
Mix the ginger for dusting and cinnamon for dusting and sift them over the top. Cut into squares to serve.
Nutrition
120calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- About 900 g, 30 squares
- Servings
- 15
Estimated per serving from USDA FoodData Central values for quinces and honey.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
Keep the honey at about two fifths of the raw quinces’ weight. A larger batch takes longer to cook down; use a wider pan.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.
Wrapped in parchment, it keeps about two weeks in the refrigerator. Contains barley (gluten) from the malt extract.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times 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
After Harleian MS. 4016, Chared coneys, or chardwardon, as printed in Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books, ed. Thomas Austin (London: Early English Text Society, 1888)
Recipe details
- Course
- Dessert
- Dish family
- Desserts & Sweets
- Region
- British
- Era
- Medieval
- Main ingredient
- Fruit
- Difficulty
- Intermediate
- Occasion
- State banquet