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Dessert

Banana Dessert

A custard dessert made with sugar, water, cornstarch, orange juice, and sliced bananas, served in cups.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and banana are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,118 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Banana Dessert

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Combine sugar and water in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over medium heat until the mixture thickens like custard.

  3. Stir in the cornstarch and orange juice, mixing well.

Assemble and serve

  1. In little glass cups, layer sliced bananas and custard alternately.

  2. Serve immediately.

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. Orange + bananatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,118 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + bananatop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,102 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, set custard as it heats.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps give it a smooth body.
Bananas
Add natural sweetness, flavor and a soft texture between the custard layers.
Orange juice
Adds acidity and bright citrus flavor to the custard.

The step that matters

Stirring in the cornstarch. Cornstarch thickens only when heated with liquid and stirred, so it must be mixed in well to avoid lumps and to set evenly as the custard cooks.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, banana. 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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