Skip to main content
Dessert

Banana Cream

A chilled dessert made with mashed bananas, sugar, cream, brandy, lemon juice, gelatin, and optional pineapple.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Banana and pineapple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 733 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Banana Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Remove the skin from the bananas and mash them with the sugar.

  2. Whip the cream until stiff, then fold in the mashed bananas, brandy, and lemon juice.

  3. Dissolve the gelatin and add it to the mixture, beating gently for a few minutes.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a mold and set it on ice until firm.

  2. Serve with whipped cream and sprinkle with chopped pineapple if desired.

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 + pineappletop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together733 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Cream + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  5. Brandy + pineappletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together298 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Bananas
Provide the main flavour and body, with natural sweetness that carries the dessert.
Cream
Whipped to stiffness, it adds lightness and a rich, creamy texture.
Gelatin
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when chilled and unmoulded.
Sugar
Sweetens the dessert and helps draw flavour out of the mashed bananas.
Brandy
Adds aroma and a warm, boozy depth to the banana flavour.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatin and fold it in gently. Gelatin must be fully dissolved before it is added, or it sets in lumps. Beating too hard after adding it can knock air out of the whipped cream, leaving a denser, less light set.

Swap the pineapple

The recipe marks pineapple as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (banana, sugar, cream, brandy, lemon, gelatin):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits about as well
  3. Apricotfits about as well
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against banana, sugar, cream, brandy, lemon, gelatin. 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.

More banana cream recipes

Pie 11Cake 8Ice Cream 4Filling 3 See all 53 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesPineapple SherbetPineapple Sherbet116 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes