British Cakes and tarts you can try: Banbury Cakes - home made, to use up leftover pastry

With some leftover puff pastry we looked for what we could make. In the good old days everybody made all kinds of pastry at home. Now both homes and restaurants use packet mixes. You can buy pancake mix, frozen made up puff pastry ready to roll out and cook, as well as tart bases.

Trips to restaurants, up north, and to supermarkets, show all kinds of regional cakes, pies and biscuits. What can you make quickly with pastry or leftover pastry, or pastry bought made up, ready-made from the supermarket?

We made Banbury Cakes. Here is the result:

What's the difference between a Banbury cake and an Eccles cake?
The Banbury cake is oval.
The Eccles cake is round.

How do you remember which is which? I think of the round cake looking like a circle, like the letter c appearing twice in the middle of Eccles. Or think of the letter c in twice in circle and twice in Eccles.(Banbury is the other one. Oval. Banbury and oval both contain the letter a.)

How do you make it? Roll out your pastry, put in the filling. Pull the outsides of the pastry into the middle above the filling and pinch it all together in the middle like a small bag. Then turn over and flatten it and roll it out with a rolling pin. As you roll it out, you stretch it into an oval pattern.

What is the filling? Traditionally it is dark and looks like mincemeat (which you can buy ready made in a glass jar from a supermarket in the UK). The difference is that mincemeat contains suet. The Banbury cake has currants (or raisins or sultanas), honey (or sugar), candied orange peel - (or fresh lemon peel). You add nutmeg or cinnamon.

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1112640/banbury-cakes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banbury_cake
See Wikipedia for all kinds of English and British cakes.


Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.