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Banbury Tarts
Chop 1 cupful seeded raisins, add 1/2 cupful cleaned currants, 1 cupful sugar, 2 tablespoonful cracker dust, 1 beaten egg, juice and grated rind 1 lemon. Roll pie-crust very thin, cut in circles. Lay on each a tablespoonful of filling; wet edges of paste; fold each side over the middle to form pointed ovals, dust with granulated sugar, and bake twenty minutes in slow oven.
A compact fruit turnover with a filling that needs no pre-cooking — the egg and cracker crumbs set it in the oven. The main adjustments are the oven temperature and the thickness of the pastry.
- Cracker dustFinely crushed plain soda or water crackers, used as a binder to absorb the lemon juice and keep the filling from running. Fine dry breadcrumbs work identically; 2 tablespoons is enough for this quantity of fruit.
- Slow ovenA slow oven in this period is usually taken as somewhere around 275-325F. Twenty minutes at the low end of that range will set the filling but tends to leave the pastry pale and slack; 375F for 20-25 minutes gives the same set with a crisper, browned crust.
- CurrantsDried Zante currants, not fresh red or black currants. "Cleaned" refers to picking out stems and grit, a step modern packaged fruit no longer needs.
- Seeded raisinsRaisins with the seeds removed by hand — ordinary seedless raisins today. Chop them fairly fine so the filling holds together when the pastry is folded.
- SugarA full cup of sugar to a cup and a half of dried fruit reads sweet by current taste. Two-thirds of a cup still binds and sets without loss.
- Rolling and shapingRoll the pastry to about 1/8 inch and cut 4-inch rounds. The instruction to fold each side over the middle produces the traditional pointed oval; press the seam firmly and cut a small vent, or the filling steams the pastry open.
- YieldThe filling comes to roughly 2 1/2 cups, and at the tablespoonful per tart the recipe specifies that is several dozen small tarts, not a dozen. Cool them on a rack — the filling is very hot and stays molten for several minutes.