Name: Banana Cake
Ingredients: sponge cake; 2 bananas, sliced; ¼ cup orange juice; 2 tablespoons sugar

Why it works: Banana and orange 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 Cake

Ingredients

sponge cake
2 bananas, sliced
¼ cup orange juice
2 tablespoons sugar

Directions

Prepare the components

Prepare any sponge cake.
Soak the sliced bananas in orange juice.
Sprinkle the bananas with sugar.

Assemble and serve

Layer the soaked bananas between the two layers of sponge cake before serving.

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 + orangetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,118 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Banana + sugartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,102 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Orange and sugar 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

Sponge cake: Provides the light, airy structure that the bananas are layered into.
Bananas: Add fruity sweetness and soft, moist texture to the layers.
Orange juice: Adds bright acidity and citrus flavour, and softens the banana slices.
Sugar: Sweetens the bananas and helps draw out their juices.