Name: Banana Cookies
Ingredients: 2 cups soft white sugar; 1 cup butter; 2 large bananas; 2 teaspoons baking powder; ½ cup sweet milk; 1 egg, well beaten

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Banana Cookies

Ingredients

Directions

Crush the bananas and sugar together until well combined.
Add the butter, baking powder, sweet milk, and beaten egg to the mixture.
Mix until the dough is rather soft.
Sprinkle the top with granulated sugar.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Banana + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,470 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Butter + bananatop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,536 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).