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Dessert

Banana Cream

A gelatin-based dessert made with bananas, milk, sugar, lemon juice, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Banana Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin the bananas and rub them through a wire sieve.

  2. Soak the gelatine in the water for about 10 minutes.

Make the cream

  1. Dissolve the gelatine gently over the fire with the milk, sugar, banana pulp, and lemon juice.

  2. Allow to cool slightly, then stir in the whipped cream.

  3. As soon as it begins to set, pour the mixture into a mould rinsed in cold water.

Serve

  1. Unmould in the usual manner and serve.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Banana + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,470 recipes

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

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  4. Banana + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,134 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the liquid mixture into a firm, sliceable cream that holds its shape when unmoulded.
Bananas
Provide the main banana flavour and a soft, smooth body to the cream.
Milk
Adds richness and a creamy base that carries the banana flavour.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the cream and balances the tartness of the lemon juice.
Whipped cream
Adds fat and air, giving a lighter, more tender texture to the set cream.

The step that matters

Pour as it begins to set. Gelatine sets as it cools, so pouring too early lets the mixture run out of the mould, while waiting too long leaves lumps and a weak set. Timing the pour around the first signs of setting keeps the cream smooth and the shape intact.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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