Name: Almond Macaroons Bananas Cream
Ingredients: macaroons; sherry; bananas; powdered sugar; whipped cream

Why it works: Sherry and banana work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 117 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Almond Macaroons Bananas Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Cover the bottom of a glass dish with macaroons and moisten with sherry.
Moisten an equal number of macaroons on another platter.
Slice one layer of bananas over the macaroons in the glass dish.
Sprinkle lightly with powdered sugar and cover with slightly sweetened whipped cream.
Spread the macaroons from the platter on the whipped cream, then repeat with sliced bananas, sugar, and cream.
Stand in a cool place for an hour.

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.

Sherry + bananatop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together117 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Sherry + creamtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,038 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Banana + sugartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,102 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sherry + sugartop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,141 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).