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Dessert

Bananas Baked

Baked bananas with lemon, red wine, cloves, cinnamon, sugar, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Bananas Baked

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Peel the bananas and coat them with lemon juice.

  2. Place the bananas in a pan and pour red wine over them until it is ¾ inch deep.

Bake and serve

  1. Add the cloves, cinnamon sticks, sugar, and butter cut into bits.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until light brown.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Red wine + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Their starch and natural sugars soften and sweeten as they bake, giving the soft texture.
Lemon
Its acid slows browning on the peeled banana flesh and adds a bright note.
Red wine
Provides liquid that braises the bananas and adds color and fruity flavor.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown as it caramelizes in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that helps the surface brown and carries the spice flavors.

The step that matters

Coat the bananas with lemon juice right after peeling. Peeled banana flesh oxidizes and darkens quickly when exposed to air. Lemon juice's acid slows this enzymatic browning, so the fruit keeps a cleaner color before and during baking.

Swap the banana

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, red wine, clove, cinnamon, sugar, butter):

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, red wine, clove, cinnamon, sugar, butter. 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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