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Dessert

Banana Cream

A chilled gelatin dessert made with bananas, milk, sugar, lemon juice, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Prepare

  1. Skin the bananas and mash them through a wire sieve.

  2. Soak the gelatine in a little milk for about 15 minutes.

Make the cream

  1. Dissolve the gelatine gently over low heat with the remaining milk, sugar, banana pulp, and lemon juice.

  2. Allow the mixture to cool slightly, then stir in the whipped cream.

  3. As soon as it begins to set, pour the mixture into a mold rinsed in cold water.

Serve

  1. Unmold and serve.

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 + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,470 recipes

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

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when unmolded.
Bananas
Provide the main banana flavour and body from the mashed pulp.
Milk
Adds liquid and creaminess, and dissolves the gelatine along with the sugar.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the lemon juice.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture to the set mixture.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture as soon as it begins to set. If the gelatine sets fully in the bowl, the cream cannot be poured into the mold smoothly. Pouring at the first sign of setting lets it fill the mold evenly and hold its shape once chilled.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against banana, milk, 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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