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Alice's Banana Bread Recipe

My name is not Alice-but Alice gave me this recipe-so I owe her credit.I could never duplicate a moist, tender Banana bread until this year and the recipe is...

By chow · From Open Recipes · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Banana and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,430 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

The recipe

1 loaf 6 muffins

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

By chow. Recipe from Open Recipes.

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 + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together35,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Butter + pecanstop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,408 recipes

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

  4. Vanilla + pecanstop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,691 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  5. Butter + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together122,858 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla share little aroma chemistry, yet 35,031 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Flavor stand-ins for the pecans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, banana, sugar, butter, vanilla, flour):

  1. Almondbetter flavor fit
  2. Pecansthe original
  3. Chestnutabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Hazelnutabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, banana, sugar, butter, vanilla, flour. 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).