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Dessert

Bananas and Cream

A simple dessert of sliced bananas topped with sugar and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Bananas and Cream

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 ↓

Bananas and Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice each banana crosswise.

  2. Place the banana slices in a saucer.

Assemble and serve

  1. Strew with fine sugar.

  2. Cover with cream.

  3. Serve immediately while the bananas are ice-cold.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. 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 fruit flavour and soft, sliceable body.
Fine sugar
Adds sweetness and draws juice from the banana slices, forming a light syrup.
Cream
Adds richness and fat that softens the sharpness of the fruit and sugar.

The step that matters

Serve immediately. Sugar draws liquid out of sliced banana over time, so the slices soften, darken and turn watery. Serving straight after adding the cream keeps the texture firm and the cold, fresh flavour intact.

Swap the banana

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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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