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Dessert

Banbury Tarts

A pastry tart filled with raisins, sugar, egg, and lemon, baked in a cool oven.

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Stir and chop the raisins.

  2. In a bowl, combine raisins, sugar, beaten egg, finely rolled cracker, lemon juice, and lemon rind.

Shape the tarts

  1. Roll pastry to ⅛ inch thick and cut into pieces 3.5 inches long by 3 inches wide.

  2. Place 2 teaspoons of the mixture on each piece.

  3. Moisten the edge with cold water halfway around, fold over, and press edges together with a fork dipped in flour.

Bake

  1. Bake for 20 minutes in a cool oven at 300°F (150°C).

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. 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. Egg + sugartop 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 body of the tart.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling bind and caramelise slightly as it bakes.
Egg
Binds the filling together so it holds its shape when baked.
Cracker
Crumbs thicken the filling and give it body as they absorb moisture.
Lemon
Juice and rind add acidity and bright aroma that cut the sweetness.

The step that matters

Sealing the edges. If the edges are not moistened and pressed firmly together, the filling can leak out during baking. Dipping the fork in flour keeps the pastry from sticking to the tines.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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

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