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Dessert

Banbury Tarts

Banbury tarts are small pastries of pastry folded around a sweet filling of raisins, sugar, egg, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Fannie Merritt Farmer · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Banbury Tarts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Stone and chop raisins.

  2. Add sugar, slightly beaten egg, finely rolled cracker, and lemon juice and rind.

Shape the tarts

  1. Roll pastry one-eighth inch thick.

  2. Cut pieces three and one-half inches long by three inches wide.

  3. Put two teaspoons of mixture on each piece.

  4. Moisten edge with cold water half-way round.

  5. Fold over and press edges together with a three-tined fork, first dipped in flour.

Bake

  1. Bake twenty minutes in slow oven.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

267Calories
8 gProtein
7 gFat
44 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cracker5 saltine crackers (15g)66
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Fannie Merritt Farmer. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  2. Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Raisins
Provide the sweet, chewy fruit filling that forms the tart's body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown as it bakes.
Egg
Binds the filling so it holds together rather than running out.
Cracker
Absorbs moisture and thickens the filling as it bakes.

The step that matters

Moisten edge with cold water half-way round. Water helps the pastry edges stick together when folded and pressed. Without a good seal, the filling can leak out during baking.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, sugar, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar, egg. 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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