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Dessert

Mock Banana

A banana-flavored applesauce mixed with beaten egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and banana match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 435 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Mock Banana

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cook apple sauce in the usual way until ready.

  2. Sweeten the apple sauce to taste and add banana flavoring.

  3. Gently fold in the beaten egg white until combined.

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. Apple + bananatop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together435 recipes

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

  2. Banana + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Apple + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,461 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Sauce + bananatop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together155 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Apple + saucetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together965 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Apple sauce
Provides the main body and moisture of the dish.
Egg white
Adds lightness and a little airy texture when gently folded in.
Banana flavoring
Supplies the banana aroma that defines the dish.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the beaten egg white. Folding gently keeps air bubbles in the beaten egg white, so the applesauce stays light instead of deflating and turning dense.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pineapplefits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, banana, egg. 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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