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Dessert

Creamed Bananas

Sliced bananas topped with whipped cream, egg white, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Creamed Bananas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the bananas and sprinkle with 2 tablespoons of sugar.

  2. Whip the heavy cream until light and fluffy.

  3. In a separate bowl, whip the egg white to stiff peaks.

Assemble and serve

  1. Combine the whipped cream, egg white, and remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar.

  2. Pour the mixture over the bananas and serve.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
Provide the fruit base and natural sweetness that the cream mixture is poured over.
Heavy cream
Adds fat and richness, and whipping traps air to give a light, fluffy texture.
Egg white
Whipped to stiff peaks, its proteins trap air and lighten the topping.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps stabilize the whipped egg white foam.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg white to stiff peaks. Egg white proteins unfold and trap air as they whip. Stop when peaks stand upright and glossy; overbeating makes the foam grainy and dry, and it can collapse when folded in.

Swap the banana

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, 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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