Inspired by John Murrell’s A Daily Exercise for Ladies and Gentlewomen (1621)
Originally published: December 31, 2020, 3:28 PM
Updated: May 13, 2026
These coriander-flavored marchpane candies, called Callishones, are small molded sweetmeats made from almond paste, sugar, spice, and rosewater. They belong to the glittering world of Renaissance banqueting, where food, medicine, perfume, and display often shared the same sugared tray.
Callishones is likely related to the French calissons, traditionally pronounced roughly “cal-ee-SOHNS.”
The finished candies are delicate rather than strongly spiced. Coriander gives the almond paste a warm, citrus-like fragrance, while rosewater adds a floral note. With a touch of gold at the edges, they become tiny edible jewels fit for a feast board.
John Murrell’s A Daily Exercise for Ladies and Gentlewomen belongs to the early 17th-century English tradition of printed household and cookery books aimed at gentlewomen managing refined domestic tables. These books often included recipes for preserves, pastes, marmalades, comfits, marchpanes, and decorative banquet dishes.
The longer title associated with this work emphasizes learning “the whole Art of making Pastes, Preserves, Marmalades,” which places these callishones firmly in the world of sweetmeats and banquet confectionery.
Online reference: A Delightfull Daily Exercise for Ladies and Gentlewomen at ckbk.
What Are Callishones?
Callishones were molded or printed sweetmeats made from marchpane paste. The name is related to calissons, almond-based sweets still associated with southern France. In this English recipe, the paste is flavored with coriander and musk, then shaped and dried.
Because almonds, sugar, floral waters, and aromatic ingredients were expensive, marchpane sweets were associated with wealth, banquets, weddings, and courtly hospitality. They were not merely “candy” in the modern sense. They were part dessert, part digestive, part edible art.
A Luxury Confection
In the 17th century, almonds, refined sugar, floral waters, and imported spices represented luxury ingredients. Even small sweetmeats like these reflected access to global trade and fashionable dining culture.
Original Recipe
To Make Callishones - Take halfe a pound of Marchpane paste, a thimble-full of coriander seeds beaten to a powder, with a graine of Muske, beat all to a perfect paste, print it and drie it.
