Banbury Cakes

Banbury cakes are oval parcels of butter puff pastry filled with currants, brown sugar and other dried fruit, then flavoured with spices and rosewater. Although delicious straight from the bag, the full taste and aroma of the cake is best appreciated by leaving them for a few minutes in a warm oven before serving.

Apart from the distinctive flavour the most remarkable quality of these cakes is that they keep fresh for over a month. It was this quality that led to them being exported all over the world during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

One of the first recorded recipes for these delicious flat oval cakes is in "The English Hus-wife" published in 1615.

Traditionally Banbury cakes were sold in bags of three. The origins of this custom are as obscure as those of the cakes themselves but it is generally accepted that both the Banbury cake and its later cousin the Eccles cake are based upon a confection that the Crusaders brought back from the Holy Lands and it has been suggested that the custom is a reference to the Holy Trinity.

Families in Banbury kept their recipes secret but when one of the last Banbury bakers stopped making them he sold his recipe to Tim Bennett the master baker at Palace Cuisine. Tim has now re-introduced these cakes on a commercial basis.

Our Banbury cakes are available in trays, individual packs of three or in woven baskets for counter display.

Traditional hand made bread & pastries from a responsive family bakery