John Townshend’s 1773 Recipe for ‘Quince Pudding’

“Scald your quinces very tender, pare them very thin, scrape off the soft, put to it sugar, powder of ginger, and a little cinnamon, then have ready some cream ; to a pint of cream you may put three or four yolks of eggs, and then put in your quinces ; it must be pretty thick of your quinces.
Note, a pudding may be made thus, with apricots or white pear-plumbs, according as you like it. Butter your dish and bake it.”

John Townshend The Universal Cook, or Lady’s Complete Assistant (1773)

It’s coming up to quince season, if you know where to look for them, or are lucky enough to find a few in your local greengrocer or deli. We have a ‘Meeches Prolific’ tree at work and a few quinces dropped last week, probably a little early, but they were in good condition so I snaffled them to make a batch of quince jelly.

John Townshend’s recipe sounds like it might be an interesting alternative though. Start by cooking your quinces in scalding water – according to the very handy glossary at vintagerecipesandcookery.com, scalding usually meant “heat liquid almost to a boil, until bubbles begin to form around the edge” – until they are very tender, then pare (peel) them very thinly, removing the skin and little else. We’re then told to “scrape off the soft”, – remove the cooked quince flesh – and add to it the sugar, powdered ginger, and a little cinnamon, all to taste.

The next step is to make the essentials of a custard by mixing cream and egg yolks, and then adding enough of the quince flesh to be able to mix it all to a nice, thick consistency. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish and then bake it – perhaps using a bain-marie to avoid scorching? – presumably in a low to moderate oven, until it’s set.

That all sounds rather delicious to me. If I hadn’t already turned those quinces into jelly, I’d be tempted to give that one a go. Something to bear in mind for next year.

How about you? Do you like your quinces baked into a custard pudding, or made into a marmelade, or in classic a pie, or preserved in cider, or baked into a custard pudding… whoa, hang on a minute! That last recipe, from Charlotte Mason’s, The Lady’s Assistant for Regulating and Supplying the Table, 4th edition (1778), which I posted back in December 2022, turns out to be an almost word-for-word copy of John Townshend’s. Mind you, this sort of thing was very common indeed back in the eighteenth century, when the copyright laws of the day¹Specifically the Statute of Anne of 1710. specifically excluded household recipes, or “receipts”, from protection. Come to think of it, I expect Townshend’s version is probably a copy of an even earlier one, which I haven’t stumbled across just yet.

Ah well, I’ve written the post now. Might as well give this recipe a second go-around. Do let me know if this repeat appearance encourages you to give ‘Quince Pudding’ a go, via the comments.

Footnotes

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  Specifically the Statute of Anne of 1710. ↩︎