Skip to main content
Dessert

Banbury Cakes

Banbury cakes are fruit-filled pastry rounds baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Banbury Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a large bowl, combine suet, currants, raisins, sour apples, almonds, bread crumbs, citron, candied lemon peel, orange peel, lemon rind, and lemon juice.

  3. Add sugar, nutmeg, and brandy to taste.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out rich pastry into round pieces about 6 inches across and ¼ inch thick.

  2. Place some of the filling in the center, fold the pastry over, and press the sides together.

  3. Fold over the ends, rounding the corners to form an oval shape.

  4. Bake until golden brown.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich as it bakes.
Currants
Provide chewy sweetness and body to the filling.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture to the filling.
Sour apples
Add moisture and tart acidity that balances the sugar.
Almonds
Add nutty flavour and a bit of texture to the filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help hold the filling together.

The step that matters

Pressing and sealing the pastry. If the seams are not pressed firmly closed, the filling can leak out during baking. Filling placed in the center and sealed evenly keeps the juices and fat inside, so the pastry bakes into a neat, full oval.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, apple, almond, bread, lemon, orange, sugar):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Cranberryfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, apple, almond, bread, lemon, orange, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Apple Bread PuddingApple Bread Pudding21 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesApple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipes