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Dessert

Banana Cream

A dessert made by mixing mashed bananas with whipped sweet cream, served with toasted shredded wheat biscuits or cereals, optionally flavored with nutmeg or vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Banana and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,430 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Banana Cream

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Mash the bananas in a bowl.

  2. Whip the sweet cream until light and fluffy.

  3. Mix the mashed bananas with the whipped cream thoroughly.

Serve

  1. Serve with shredded wheat biscuits or cereals heated in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 5 minutes.

  2. Add a dash of nutmeg or a few drops of vanilla for extra flavor if desired.

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 + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Wheat + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together359 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Nutmeg + vanillatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Wheat + vanillatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

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

  5. Banana + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together127 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 moisture and natural sweetness, and give the cream its body and flavor.
Sweet cream
Provides fat and richness, and whipping traps air to make the mixture light and fluffy.

The step that matters

Mix the mashed bananas with the whipped cream thoroughly.. Whipped cream holds its airy texture because of trapped air bubbles. Stirring too hard or too long deflates it, making the banana cream dense and loose. Combine until evenly blended, but fold gently.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (banana, cream, wheat, vanilla):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Peppermintfits about as well
  4. Clovefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against banana, cream, wheat, vanilla. 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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