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Dessert

Banana Gateau

A sponge cake layered with banana, orange gelatin, sherry, apricot glaze, and whipped cream.

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 124 recipes mention both. Both carry 3-methyl-1-butanol acetate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

Banana Gateau

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Melt together the orange juice, gelatine, sugar, and water.

  2. Strain the mixture and allow it to cool, but do not let it set.

Fill the cake

  1. Cut a slice off the top of the sponge cake and remove a circular piece from the center.

  2. Rub the bananas through a sieve and mix half with 2 tablespoons of the jelly and 1 tablespoon of cream.

  3. Pour this mixture inside the cake.

  4. Replace the top slice of the cake and sprinkle with sherry.

  5. Brush with apricot glaze.

Decorate and finish

  1. Sweeten half of the cream and whip it.

  2. Color slightly with cochineal.

  3. Use a piping bag to decorate the cake with the whipped cream.

  4. Mix the remaining cream and jelly with the leftover banana, whip together, and pour around the cake.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Banana + apricottop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together124 recipes

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

  2. Orange + apricottop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together703 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Sherry + apricottop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together173 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Orange + bananatop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,118 recipes

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

  5. Sherry + bananatop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together117 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the orange jelly so the banana filling holds its shape when cut.
Bananas
Provide the sweet, soft fruit purée that flavors and moistens the filling.
Sponge cake
Forms the base structure that holds the banana filling and sherry.
Cream
Adds richness and, when whipped, creates a light topping for decoration.
Sherry
Adds aroma and flavor and moistens the sponge cake.

The step that matters

Cool the jelly without letting it set. Gelatine sets as it cools below its setting point. If the jelly sets too early it becomes lumpy and will not blend smoothly with the banana purée and cream.

Flavor stand-ins for the orange

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

  1. Vanillabetter flavor fit
  2. Strawberrybetter flavor fit
  3. Pineapplebetter flavor fit
  4. Orangethe original

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