Hippocras

The modern recipe, supplied by Marian Peacock Pochin:

A pottle is half a gallon or 2 quarts, old English measure.  So make half of Markham’s quantities below.  Use either red or white wine – the white version becomes a lovely amber colour.  I bought my spices from an Indian cash and carry – their spices are fresher and much cheaper!

32 fl. oz. red or white wine
1 oz. cinnamon sticks (not powder)
¼ oz. dried ginger root
4 or 5 cloves
3 black pepper corns
Half a whole nutmeg
A small sprig of rosemary (I have never tried using the flowers – they never seem to be out when I need them)
8 oz sugar

Bruise the whole spices roughly with a pestle and mortar, or use the end of a rolling pin and a bowl.  Put the spices, the rosemary and the sugar into the wine.  Do not heat the wine.  Cover it and leave at room temperature to infuse overnight.  Strain it through a damp jelly bag, or through damp muslin folded into 4 layers.  Serve it in a jug or a decanter, after dinner.

The following is the original wording. 

TO MAKE IPOCRAS

Take a pottell of wine, two ounces of good Cinamon, halfe an ounce of ginger, nine cloues, and sixe pepper cornes, and a nutmeg, and bruise them and put them into the wine with some rosemary flowers, and so let them steepe all night, and then put in suger a pound at least; and when it is well setled let it runne through a woollen bag made for that purpose: thus if your wine be clarret the Ipocras will be red, if white then of that colour also.

Gervase Markham, 1615

Marchpane
The little almond cakes served with the hippocras were made of the same paste as the marchpane – 1 lb of blanched and freshly ground almonds to 8 oz. caster sugar, moistened with rose water.  Do not use ready ground almonds – they are tasteless.  I rolled out the paste, cut out the little rounds, and left them to dry.  Then I made a sugar syrup by dissolving sugar in a little rosewater.  When the syrup was completely dissolved and transparent, it was brushed over the almond cakes and left to dry to a clear glaze.  I made nearly 400 of these.  My village WI rallied round, lending me their cooling racks, and most of my house was festooned with trays of drying almond cakes!

A fuller description of the making of the Marchpane itself will follow.

Marian Peacock Pochin
March 2006