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Dessert

Banana Cream

A chilled dessert made with gelatin, cream, milk, egg yolks, bananas, and sugar.

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 custard base

  1. Simmer the gelatin in the milk until dissolved.

  2. Stir in the beaten egg yolks and return to the heat.

  3. Stir until it thickens slightly, then remove from heat.

Finish and chill

  1. Add the cream and mashed bananas, mixing well.

  2. Pour into a mold and refrigerate until cold.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Milk + bananatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,470 recipes

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

  5. Cream + milktop 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

Gelatin
Sets the cream mixture so it holds its shape when chilled.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk mixture as they gently cook and add richness.
Cream
Adds fat and smooth, rich texture to the finished dessert.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the gelatin dissolves into and the yolks thicken.
Bananas
Provide banana flavor, natural sweetness, and body when mashed into the cream.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolks and keep the heat gentle. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat; if the mixture gets too hot or boils, the proteins can scramble and curdle, leaving a grainy custard that will not set smoothly.

Swap the banana

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against gelatin, cream, milk, egg, sugar. 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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