Why it works: Banana and butter match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,529 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: egg, milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Prepare the bananas
Preheat oven to 300°F.
Peel and halve the bananas.
Fry the banana halves in a little canola oil and arrange them at the bottom of a round Pyrex bowl.
Make the custard layer
Mix the egg yolks with 1 cup of sugar, add melted butter, and mix well.
Pour the yolk mixture over the bananas.
Make the meringue and bake
To make the meringue, beat the egg whites until stiff.
Slowly add 12 tablespoons of sugar to the egg whites. Turn the mixture (but do not beat) for 15 minutes.
Pour the meringue over the bananas, or use a piping bag to squeeze it decoratively over the bananas.
Cook in the oven for 30 minutes.
Serve warm.
This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.
Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Banana + buttertop 7% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together1,529 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
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Egg + buttertop 8% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together118,511 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Sugar + buttertop 10% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together98,096 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Egg + sugartop 10% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together122,252 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Banana + sugartop 11% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together3,102 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the custard layer and add richness as they set in the oven.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into stiff foam that gives the meringue its airy structure and lift.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard and, dissolved into whipped whites, stabilises the meringue.
- Butter or margarine
- Adds fat for a rich, tender texture in the yolk custard.
- Bananas
- Provide the fruity base layer, softened and lightly browned by frying.
The step that matters
Turning the meringue without beating it. Once sugar is added, over-beating whites can collapse the foam, and gentle folding keeps the air bubbles that give the meringue its volume.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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