Why it works: Apricot and banana match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 124 recipes mention both. Both carry 3-methyl-1-butanol acetate, which smells fruity. The science ↓
Banana Fingers
Ingredients
Directions
Make the jam
Combine apricot jam, red currant jelly, lemon juice, and caster sugar in a pan; stir and bring to a boil.
Simmer for 3 minutes, then remove from heat.
Cut bananas in half lengthwise and add to the pan; let them sit for 3 minutes without boiling.
Prepare the cake
Cut sponge cakes in half lengthwise and butter each half.
In a dry hot frying pan, place the buttered halves downwards and brown on both sides.
Assemble and serve
Place browned halves on a dish, sprinkle with sherry, and top each with a banana.
Pour the hot jam over the bananas; garnish as desired and serve.
If serving cold, pipe whipped cream around the bananas in a neat design.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Apricot + bananatop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together124 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-methyl-1-butanol acetate (fruity).
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Apricot + sherrytop 8% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together173 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
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Apricot + red curranttop 9% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together58 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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Banana + sherrytop 9% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together117 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
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Red currant + lemontop 12% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together309 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sponge cakes
- Provide a soft, absorbent base that holds the sherry and jam.
- Bananas
- Add soft sweetness and a tender texture when gently warmed in the jam.
- Apricot jam
- Adds fruity sweetness and a glossy coating that moistens the dish.
- Red currant jelly
- Adds tartness and setting body to the glaze.
- Butter
- Adds fat and helps the cut cake halves brown in the pan.
The step that matters
Keep the jam below a boil once the bananas go in. Bananas soften and turn mushy when overheated, so letting them sit in the warm jam without boiling keeps them intact while still flavouring them.
Flavor stand-ins for the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apricot, banana, butter, red currant, sugar, sherry):
- Vanillabetter flavor fit
- Peachbetter flavor fit
- Plumbetter flavor fit
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against apricot, banana, butter, red currant, sugar, sherry. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).
“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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