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Dessert

Bananas in Syrup

Bananas in syrup is a dessert of peeled bananas simmered in currant and raspberry juice sweetened with sugar, then served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Red raspberry and banana share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8 recipes. Both carry acetoin, which smells butter, cream. The science ↓

Bananas in Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup and poach

  1. In a porcelain kettle, heat currant and red raspberry juice until boiling.

  2. Add sugar to taste.

  3. Drop in the peeled bananas and simmer slowly for 20 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the bananas and boil the juice until it thickens to a syrup consistency.

  2. Pour the syrup over the bananas and serve cold.

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. Red raspberry + bananatop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  2. Currant + bananatop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together39 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Sugar + bananatop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,102 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Red raspberry + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together49 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Currant + red raspberrytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Bananas
Provide the main body and soft, sweet flesh that softens while simmering in the juice.
Currant juice
Adds tart acidity and fruity flavour that balances the sweetness of the syrup.
Red raspberry juice
Adds fruity aroma and colour, and its natural pectin helps the juice thicken into syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the juice and, as it reduces, helps it thicken into a syrup.

The step that matters

Boil the juice down to syrup consistency after removing the bananas. Boiling drives off water and concentrates the sugars and pectin, so the juice thickens. If it is not reduced enough, the syrup will be thin and runny when poured over the cold bananas.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against red raspberry, sugar, banana. 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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