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Dessert

Banana Cream

A chilled dessert made from mashed bananas, sugar, cream, brandy, lemon juice, and isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Banana Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Peel the bananas and pound them in a mortar with the sugar until a pulp forms.

  2. Beat the cream until stiff, then add the pounded bananas, brandy, and lemon juice; mix well.

  3. Dissolve the isinglass in a little boiling water, then gently whisk it into the banana mixture.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a mold and set it in a cool place until needed.

  2. To serve, dip the mold in warm water for a few seconds, wipe it, and turn it out onto a glass or silver dish.

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

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

  2. Banana + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together100 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  3. Cream + brandytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  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

Bananas
Provide the main flavour and pulp that gives the cream its body.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture when whipped until stiff.
Isinglass
Acts as a gelatin-like setting agent so the mixture holds its shape when turned out.
White sugar
Sweetens the dish and helps draw out a smooth pulp from the bananas.
Brandy
Adds aroma and a warm, spirited flavour to the banana mixture.

The step that matters

Dissolve the isinglass in boiling water before whisking it in. Isinglass must be fully dissolved in hot water to set evenly; lumps or undissolved gel left in the cream can leave a grainy texture and uneven setting.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against banana, sugar, cream, brandy. 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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