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Dessert

Banana Cake

A moist cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, egg whites, water, vanilla, powdered sugar, and sliced bananas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and banana 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 Cake

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the cake

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Stir in milk.

  5. In a separate bowl, combine flour and baking powder, then gradually add to wet mixture.

  6. Pour batter into greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Ice and decorate

  1. For icing, beat egg whites with water and vanilla until soft peaks form.

  2. Gradually add powdered sugar until smooth.

  3. Spread icing between layers of cake and top with sliced bananas.

  4. Ice top of cake without adding bananas to prevent them from sliding off.

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. Vanilla + bananatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the crumb.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and creaming traps air for a lighter texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender, lightly browned crumb.
Egg whites
Whipped into soft peaks to give the icing a light, airy structure.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites to soft peaks for the icing. Egg white proteins unfold and trap air when whipped; underbeaten whites stay runny and won't hold the icing, while overbeaten whites turn dry and grainy.

Swap the banana

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, milk, flour, vanilla):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, milk, flour, 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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