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Dessert

Heavenly Hash

A layered fruit dessert with oranges, pineapple, bananas, strawberries, whipped cream, candied cherries, and nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pineapple and banana match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 733 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Heavenly Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the oranges, pineapple, and bananas.

Layer and serve

  1. In a bowl, layer the bananas and sprinkle with sugar and nuts.

  2. Add a layer of oranges, then sprinkle with sugar and nuts.

  3. Add a layer of pineapple, then sprinkle with sugar and nuts.

  4. Add a layer of oranges mixed with strawberries.

  5. Cover with whipped cream and garnish with candied cherries.

  6. Set the dish on ice.

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. Pineapple + bananatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together733 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Orange + pineappletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Orange + bananatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,118 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Banana + nutstop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl decanoate (grape, waxy).

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

What each ingredient does

Whipped cream
Forms a light, creamy topping that adds richness and a soft texture to the layers.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and draws some juice out of the fruit, softening it as it sits.
Bananas
Provide creamy softness and natural sweetness as a base layer.
Oranges
Add bright acidity and juiciness that balances the sweetness of the other layers.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, pineapple, banana, 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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