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Dessert

Banana Trifle

A layered dessert of bananas, lemon jelly, apricot jam, sherry, gelatin, whipped cream, almonds, and ratafias.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Banana and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124 recipes. Both carry 3-methyl-1-butanol acetate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

Banana Trifle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Pass the bananas through a fine sieve.

  2. Add the apricot jam to the bananas.

  3. Add the cooled lemon jelly to the bananas.

  4. Add the sherry to the bananas.

  5. Dissolve the gelatin in 1 tablespoon of water.

  6. Mix the dissolved gelatin with the other ingredients.

  7. Add a few drops of carmine to brighten the color.

  8. Pour the mixture into a deep dish.

Prepare the almonds and cream

  1. Blanch the almonds, then shred the almonds.

  2. Bake the almonds until brown.

  3. Let the almonds cool completely.

  4. Whip the cream until stiff.

  5. Sweeten the whipped cream with castor sugar to taste.

Top and serve

  1. Pile the whipped cream lightly on top of the jellied mixture.

  2. Sprinkle the almonds over the surface.

  3. Garnish the base with ratafias.

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 + apricottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together124 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methyl-1-butanol acetate (fruity).

  2. Apricot + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Apricot + sherrytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together173 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Banana + sherrytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together117 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Bananas
Give the trifle its smooth, soft body and fruity flavor.
Gelatine
Sets the banana and jelly mixture so it holds its shape.
Cream
Adds a light, airy topping and richness.
Lemon jelly
Adds sweetness and a firm, jelly-like setting base.
Almonds
Add crunch and toasted flavor against the soft layers.
Sherry
Adds a warm, aromatic flavor to the fruit layer.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatin and mix it in evenly. Gelatine must be fully dissolved before it is stirred into the fruit mixture, or it can form lumps or set unevenly. Adding it to a mixture that is too warm can also weaken its setting power, so the jelly may not firm up properly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against banana, apricot, sherry, almond, cream, sugar. 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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