Name: Baked Bananas—2
Ingredients: 4 ripe bananas; 2 tablespoons sugar; 1 tablespoon lemon juice; ¼ teaspoon cinnamon

Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Baked Bananas—2

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

4 ripe bananas
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
¼ teaspoon cinnamon

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Peel the bananas and place them in a baking pan.
Sprinkle the bananas with sugar, lemon juice, and cinnamon.
Bake for 1 hour and serve as a vegetable.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

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.

Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,950 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Banana + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together701 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Banana + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,134 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Bananas: Their starches and sugars soften and sweeten as they bake, giving a tender, moist texture.
Sugar: Sweetens the bananas and helps their surfaces brown and caramelize in the oven.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and slows browning of the cut fruit.
Cinnamon: Adds warm aroma and spice that complements the sweet banana flavor.