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Dessert

Banana Cream

A gelatin dessert made with mashed bananas, sugar, cream, lemon juice, and gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Gelatin and cream match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,628 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Banana Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the banana mixture

  1. Mix the mashed bananas with the sugar.

  2. Whip the cream and stir in the banana mixture and lemon juice.

Set the gelatin

  1. Soak the gelatin in the cold water for 5 minutes.

  2. Dissolve the gelatin by placing it in hot water.

  3. Strain the gelatin and mix it with the banana mixture.

  4. Pour into a mold and place on ice to harden.

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. Gelatin + creamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Gelatin
Sets the mixture into a firm, sliceable structure as it chills.
Cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture when whipped.
Bananas
Provide the main banana flavor, sweetness and body to the dessert.
Sugar
Sweetens the bananas and adds to the overall sweetness of the dessert.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Strain the gelatin and mix it with the banana mixture.. Gelatin must be fully dissolved and strained so no lumps remain, since undissolved bits leave a weak, uneven set. Gelatin that is too hot can also deflate the whipped cream when folded in.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against gelatin, 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.

More banana cream recipes

Pie 11Cake 8Ice Cream 4Filling 3 See all 53 →

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