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Dessert

Banbury Meat

A sweet pastry made with butter, sugar, candied peel, flour, currants, spices, and egg yolks, baked into a loaf.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Banbury Meat

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.

Make the dough

  1. Beat the butter until creamy.

  2. Mix in the sugar, candied peel, flour, currants, allspice, and cinnamon until well combined.

  3. Blend in the beaten yolks of the eggs.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut pieces of dough 4 inches long and 3.5 inches wide.

  2. Place some of the mixture in the center, fold the dough, and press the edges together.

  3. Make three marks on top with a knife and brush with whipped egg white and sugar.

  4. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to give the dough a tender, rich texture and body.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the filling and dough together during baking.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, helping bind the dough and give it a tender crumb.
Currants
Add sweetness and moisture to the filling as they plump and soften in the oven.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the surface brown during baking.

The step that matters

Press the edges together when folding. If the edges are not sealed well, the filling can leak out during baking, leaving the pastry dry and the filling burnt on the tray.

Swap the currant

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

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

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