Name: Hummingbird Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting, Vegan
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 35 min
Yield: 12
Ingredients: ½ cups Very Ripe Bananas (Black In Color And Peeled); 1 can Coconut Oil, Warm To Make Liquid; 1-½ teaspoon (10 Oz Size) Crushed Pineapple In Juice; 1 Tablespoon Vanilla; ⅔ cups Apple Cider Vinegar; 3 cups Prepared Apple Sauce ( I Use No Sugar Added); 1 teaspoon All-purpose Flour; ¼ teaspoons Baking Soda; ½ teaspoons Cinnamon; ½ teaspoons Freshly Grated Nutmeg; 2 cups Powdered Ginger; 1 cup Salt; 2 containers Sugar, I Use Organic Cane Sugar; 1 stick Chopped Pecans ( I Use Maple Glazed Pecans); 1 Tablespoon FOR THE VEGAN CREAM CHEESE FROSTING:; 3 cups (8 Oz Each) Tofutti Cream Cheese, Room Temperature

Why it works: Banana and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,430 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

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.

Banana + vanillatop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,430 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Coconut + vanillatop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,294 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Banana + pineappletop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together733 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Pineapple + vanillatop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together911 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Banana + appletop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together435 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (banana, coconut, pineapple, vanilla, apple cider vinegar, sauce, sugar):

Mangofits better
Peachfits better
Strawberryfits better
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against banana, coconut, pineapple, vanilla, apple cider vinegar, sauce, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Coconut	1/2 cup shredded (40g)	283
Pecans	1 oz (28g / ~19 halves)	196
Banana	1 medium (118g)	105
Cream Cheese	1 oz (28g)	99
Apple Sauce	1 medium (182g)	95
Pineapple	1 cup chunks (165g)	82
Maple Syrup	1 tbsp (20ml)	52
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Pecan	1 half (4g)	20
Vanilla	1 tsp extract (4ml)	12
Nutmeg	1 tsp ground (2.2g)	12
Cinnamon	1 tsp ground (2.6g)	6
Vinegar	1 tbsp (15ml) distilled	3
Ginger	1 tsp grated fresh (2g)	2
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0

Hummingbird Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting, Vegan