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Banana Puree for Brioche Timbales, Etc

A sweet banana puree mixed with orange juice, apricot marmalade, and sugar, optionally flavored with maraschino and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Banana and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124 recipes. Both carry 3-methyl-1-butanol acetate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

Banana Puree for Brioche Timbales, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Make the puree

  1. Press the pulp of the bananas, orange juice, and apricot marmalade through a sieve.

  2. Add the sugar and heat over boiling water until thoroughly scalded.

Finish and serve

  1. Let cool, then add maraschino and brandy before serving.

  2. Serve with cold or iced desserts.

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 + apricottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together124 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methyl-1-butanol acetate (fruity).

  2. Orange + apricottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together703 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Apricot + brandytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Banana + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,118 recipes

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

  5. Orange + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Bananas
Provide the main body, sweetness and smooth texture of the puree.
Apricot marmalade
Adds fruity sweetness and a glossy body to the puree.
Sugar
Sweetens the puree and helps give it a smooth, spoonable consistency.
Orange
Adds citrus acidity and fresh aroma that brighten the banana flavour.

The step that matters

Heating the puree over boiling water. Heating until thoroughly scalded dissolves the sugar and cooks the fruit evenly, so the puree blends smoothly without raw or grainy notes.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against banana, apricot, sugar, brandy. 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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