Name: Banbury cakes
Prep time: 90 min
Cook time: 25 min
Total time: 145 min
Ingredients: 200 g plain four; 1 tsp salt; 200 g unsalted butter, chilled; 80 ml cold water; 60 g unsalted butter; 15 g plain flour; ¼ tsp ground mace; ½ tsp cinnamon; ¼ tsp ground cloves; ¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg; 125 g currants; 1 tbsp brandy; 50 g brown sugar; 1 tsp lemon juice; Milk and caster sugar for glaze

Banbury cakes

In Ben Jonson’s play Bartholomew Fair (1614) there is a character, Zeal-of-the-Land Busy, a Banbury baker whose cakes "were served to bridals, may-poles, morrises and such profane feasts and meetings". Though this doesn’t describe what the cake was like, a recipe of the mid seventeenth-century suggests a cake made of leavened dough encasing currants. In the nineteenth century the dough was replaced by puff pastry. Queen Victoria was presented with Banbury cakes on her journey from Osborne to Balmoral each August and they were popular enough to be exported to India during the Raj. This recipe is based on that of Gervase Markham in Countrey Contentments, or, The English Hus-Wife (1615) but uses puff pastry.

Equipment

Baking sheet
Weighing scales
Small saucepan
Large mixing bowl
Cling film
Rolling pin
8cm unfluted pastry cutter
Pastry brush

Preparation method

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas 4.
Grease the baking sheet with butter.
To make the filling, melt the butter in the saucepan and stir in the flour and spices. Keep stirring over a low heat for a minute or two.
Remove from the heat and add the currants, sugar, brandy and lemon juice and mix together well. Set aside.
To make the pastry sift the flour and salt into the large mixing bowl.
Cut the butter into very small chunks, add them to the bowl and stir them in.
Add the cold water and bring together to a loose dough with a lumpy consistency.
Cover with clingfilm and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Place the dough on a work surface and shape into a rectangular block.
Roll the dough to a rectangle three times longer than it is short, keeping the edges straight and even. The rolled-out pastry should have a marbled effect from the lumps of butter.
Fold the top third down to the centre, then the bottom third up over that.
Give it a quarter turn and roll out again to the original sized rectangle.
Repeat the folding, turning and rolling out 3 more times or until the marbling effect has disappeared. Fold once more and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Place the chilled dough onto the floured surface and roll out to about 3mm thick.
Using the pastry cutter make 12 rounds and lay them on the work surface. Make sure you cut the pastry rounds as close to each other as possible. It is not possible to use offcuts of pastry to make more, as bringing them into a ball to roll out will lose the lamination of the puff pastry.
Place a tablespoon of filling on top of 6 of the rounds and wet the edges with a little water with your fingertips.
Place the remaining rounds on top of the filling and use your fingers to press down firmly to make sure the filling doesn’t seep out during cooking.
It is likely that by pressing down to secure the top to the bottom, you end up with raggedy edges. Place the pastry cutter over the cake and press down to return it to a perfect circle.
Fold the flat, pressed edges underneath the cakes.
Roll the cakes out very gently in one direction, creating oval shaped cakes.
Use a sharp knife to score three slits into the top of the cakes.
Brush the tops with milk and scatter caster sugar over them.
Place the cakes on the baking sheet, put in the oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely before serving.