Name: Banana Dessert
Ingredients: 1 dozen small ripe bananas; finely chopped nuts; whipped cream

Why it works: Banana and nuts work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 135 recipes. Both carry ethyl decanoate, which smells grape, waxy. The science ↓

Banana Dessert

Ingredients

1 dozen small ripe bananas
finely chopped nuts
whipped cream

Directions

Peel the bananas.
Roll the bananas in finely chopped nuts.
Serve each banana with a tablespoon of whipped cream on top.
Sprinkle additional nuts over the whipped cream.

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.

Banana + nutstop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together135 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl decanoate (grape, waxy).
Nuts + creamtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together886 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Banana + creamtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,180 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

Small ripe bananas: Provide the sweet, soft base of the dessert and most of its flavor.
Finely chopped nuts: Add a crunchy texture that contrasts with the soft banana.
Whipped cream: Adds richness and a light, creamy topping that moistens each bite.