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Dessert

Bananas, Figs and Cream

A simple dessert of sliced bananas and figs topped with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Banana and fig match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 104 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Bananas, Figs and Cream

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Slice the bananas and figs.

  2. Combine the sliced bananas and figs in a bowl.

  3. Pour the cream over the fruit and mix gently.

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. Banana + figtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together104 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Banana + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,180 recipes

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

  3. Fig + creamtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together523 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Bananas
Provide sweetness and a soft, creamy texture as they break down.
Figs
Add natural sweetness and a jammy, chewy texture to the dish.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, coating the fruit with a smooth texture.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Figthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against banana, cream. 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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