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Dessert

Banana Meringue

A baked banana dessert topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 Meringue

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the bananas

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Peel and cut the bananas into quarters lengthwise and then across.

  3. Pour lemon and pineapple juice over the bananas.

  4. Sprinkle generously with powdered sugar.

  5. Bake covered for 30 minutes.

Make the meringue and finish

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Gradually add sugar and beat until combined.

  3. Remove from the oven.

  4. Cover the bananas with the meringue.

  5. Return to the oven to brown delicately.

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. Lemon + pineappletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Bananas
Form the soft, sweet fruit base that the meringue covers.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that sets into the light, crisp topping.
Sugar
Stabilizes the whipped egg whites and sweetens the meringue topping.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances sweetness and helps keep the bananas from darkening.
Pineapple juice
Adds moisture and fruity sweetness to the banana base.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped to a firm foam before the sugar is added gradually. Under-beaten whites will not hold their shape or brown well, and the topping may weep or collapse.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against banana, pineapple, sugar, egg. 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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