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Dessert

Fine Banbury Cakes

A sweet cake made with butter, sugar, flour, candied citrus peel, currants, allspice, cinnamon, wrapped in puff pastry and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fine Banbury Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Mix the butter, sugar, flour, candied peels, currants, allspice, and cinnamon into a paste.

Shape the cakes

  1. Roll out a piece of puff pastry into an oval shape.

  2. Place a small amount of the currant mixture in the center and fold the pastry over to form a pocket.

  3. Flatten each pocket with a rolling pin and sift white sugar over them.

Bake

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) on iron plates, leaving space between each cake.

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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  3. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Orange + allspicetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together727 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Lemon + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat that keeps the filling rich and soft.
Moist sugar
Sweetens the filling and adds moisture and a soft, sticky texture.
Flour
Thickens the filling so it holds together as a paste.
Currants
Provide the main fruity filling and sweetness.
Candied orange peel
Adds bright, aromatic citrus flavour and some chewy texture.
Puff pastry (in the method)
Its many layers puff and separate in the hot oven, giving a flaky crust.

The step that matters

Sealing the pocket. If the pastry edges are not sealed well, the filling can leak out during baking, leaving the cakes dry and the sugar syrup scorched on the plate. Fold the pastry firmly over the filling and pinch the edges closed before flattening.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, flour, orange, lemon, allspice, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, orange, lemon, allspice, cinnamon. 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.

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