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Dessert

Junket with Puree of Bananas

A gelatin dessert made with banana puree, lemon and orange juice, sugar, and gelatin, served chilled with sweetened cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Junket with Puree of Bananas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the banana base

  1. Peel and slice the bananas.

  2. Place them in a saucepan with water and cook slowly until tender.

  3. Press the cooked bananas through a puree sieve.

  4. Add lemon juice, orange juice, sugar, and gelatin dissolved in cold water. Stir until dissolved.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into sherbet glasses.

  2. Chill the mixture.

  3. Fill the glasses with plain junket.

  4. Serve ice-cold with sweetened cream.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, 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 a soft, smooth body when cooked and pureed.
Gelatin
Sets the puree so it holds a soft shape when chilled.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the tartness of the citrus juices.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the banana flavour.
Sweetened cream
Adds richness and a cool, creamy contrast when served alongside.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatin. Gelatin must be fully dissolved before it is stirred into the puree, otherwise it forms lumps and will not set evenly. It sets as it cools, so the mixture should be poured and chilled without delay once combined.

Swap the banana

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, orange, sugar, gelatin, 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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