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Dessert

Banana Cream

A chilled dessert made from mashed ripe bananas, sweet cream, sugar, and jelly, topped with whipped cream and nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Banana Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the banana base

  1. Peel the bananas and mash them through a colander.

  2. In a bowl, combine the mashed bananas with the sweet cream and sugar.

Set and serve

  1. Dissolve the jelly powder in water and let it cool slightly.

  2. Add the cooled jelly to the banana mixture and stir well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a mold and refrigerate until set.

  4. Serve with whipped cream and garnish with nuts.

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.

  1. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl decanoate (grape, waxy).

  3. Cream + nutstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together886 recipes

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

  4. Banana + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,102 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  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
Provide the main flavor and a soft, smooth body when mashed.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the set dessert a creamy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavor of the bananas.
Jelly powder
Gelling agent that sets the mixture so it holds its shape in the mold.

The step that matters

Let the jelly cool slightly before adding it. Gelatin-based jelly that is still hot can thin the cream and banana mixture or partly melt the cream, and it sets less evenly. Cooling it slightly lets it blend smoothly and set firm.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Hazelnutfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against banana, cream, sugar. 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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