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Dessert

Banana Trifle

A layered dessert of sieved banana, lemon jelly, and whipped cream, garnished with toasted almonds and ratafias.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

Make the jelly base

  1. Pass the bananas through a fine sieve.

  2. Add the apricot jam, lemon jelly, and Maraschino or Curacao.

  3. Dissolve the gelatine in 1 tablespoon of water.

  4. Mix the dissolved gelatine with the other ingredients.

  5. Add a few drops of carmine to enhance the color.

  6. Pour the mixture into a serving dish.

Prepare the almonds

  1. Blanch the almonds.

  2. Shred the almonds.

  3. Bake the almonds until brown.

  4. Let the almonds cool completely.

Top and serve

  1. When ready to serve, whip the cream until stiff.

  2. Sweeten the cream to taste with powdered sugar.

  3. Flavor the cream with Maraschino or Curacao if desired.

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

  5. Sprinkle the almonds over the surface.

  6. 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. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Banana + almondtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Lemon + apricottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,098 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 main flavor and a soft, smooth body when sieved.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid mixture so it holds its shape when served.
Lemon jelly
Adds sweetness and tartness and forms the jellied base.
Cream
Whipped to stiffness, it adds a light, airy topping and richness.
Almonds
Toasted until brown, they add crunch and a nutty aroma to the topping.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatine fully before mixing. Undissolved gelatine forms lumps and weak spots, so it must be fully melted into the liquid before combining, or the jelly will not set evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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