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Dessert

Bananas and Cream

A dessert of sliced ripe bananas topped with chopped dates, nuts, and thick cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Bananas and Cream

Why it works: Banana and dates work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 61 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Bananas and Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the ripe bananas.

  2. Chop the dates and nuts.

Assemble and serve

  1. Combine the bananas, dates, and nuts in a bowl.

  2. Serve with thick cream on top.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

  1. Banana + datestop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together61 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Dates + nutstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together178 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Banana + nutstop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl decanoate (grape, waxy).

  4. Nuts + creamtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together886 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Banana + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,180 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

What each ingredient does

Bananas
Provides the main sweetness and a soft, creamy body.
Dates
Adds concentrated sweetness and a chewy texture.
Nuts
Add crunch and contrast to the soft fruit.
Thick cream
Adds richness and a smooth, fatty mouthfeel.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (banana, dates, cream):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against banana, dates, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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