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Banana Paste

A thickened banana mixture cooked with sugar, butter, lemon juice, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Banana and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,536 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Banana Paste

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and mash the bananas through a fine sieve.

Make the paste

  1. In a double boiler, combine the mashed bananas, sugar, butter, lemon juice, and egg yolks.

  2. Cook until the mixture thickens.

  3. Pour the thickened mixture into pots.

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. Banana + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Banana + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,134 recipes

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

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Bananas
Provide the main flavour and body, breaking down into a smooth purée.
Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture as they gently cook, giving it a rich, set texture.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the lemon.

The step that matters

Cook until the mixture thickens. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, and if the heat is too high they can scramble and turn grainy. Cooking slowly in a double boiler keeps the custard-like texture smooth.

Swap the banana

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, lemon, 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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