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Dessert

Banana Tartlets

A short pastry tartlet filled with sliced bananas, sugar, and citrus juice, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 Tartlets

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the pastry

  1. Rub the butter into the flour.

  2. Add the baking powder.

  3. Mix to a dry dough with water.

  4. Roll out the dough.

  5. Line a tartlet tin or plate.

  6. Decorate the edge with leaves.

Fill and bake

  1. Slice the bananas thinly.

  2. Layer the bananas in the tartlet.

  3. Sprinkle a little caster sugar between layers.

  4. Squeeze the juice of 2 oranges over the bananas.

  5. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 20 minutes.

  6. Top with egg white or whipped cream if desired.

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 + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,118 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Butter + bananatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough once mixed with water and butter.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to create a short, tender pastry texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the pastry rises and stays light.
Bananas
Provide the main filling, softening and adding sweetness and moisture as they bake.
Caster sugar
Sweetens the bananas and helps them brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 20 minutes.. The pastry needs enough heat to set and brown while the bananas soften without drying out. Too hot or too long can scorch the edges before the filling is cooked through.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, banana, sugar, egg. 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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