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Dessert

Banbury Cakes

Banbury cakes are a sweet pastry made with currants, suet, candied peel, macaroons, butter, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Banbury Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix currants, beef suet, candied lemon and orange peel, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and macaroons.

Make and shape the cakes

  1. In another bowl, make a paste by combining butter and flour, giving it an extra turn or two to prevent rising too much.

  2. Roll out half the paste thinly and spread the fruit mixture evenly on it.

  3. Moisten the edges of the paste and lay the other half on top.

  4. Mark the cakes into pieces 2 inches wide and 3 inches long with the back of a knife.

  5. Divide the cakes while they are warm and bake for 25 to 30 minutes.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + orangetop 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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 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
Its fat keeps the paste rich and tender, and it helps the pastry brown in the oven.
Flour
Forms the structure of the paste that holds the fruit filling inside.
Currants
Provide sweetness and moisture to the fruit filling.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich during baking.
Macaroons or ratifias
Add almond flavour and soften the filling as they absorb moisture.

The step that matters

Giving the paste an extra turn or two. Folding the paste extra times builds thin layers of butter and dough that stay separate. Overworking or skipping this can let the butter melt into the dough, so the cakes rise too much or lose their flaky layers.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, lemon, orange, cinnamon, nutmeg, butter, flour. 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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