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Dessert

Banana Cream Cake No. 1

A layered cake with banana filling and a sweet butter‑egg icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Banana and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,430 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Banana Cream Cake No. 1

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.

Make the cake

  1. Cream the sugar and butter together.

  2. Add unbeaten egg yolks and beat until light.

  3. Sift the flour, salt, and baking powder together three times.

  4. Add alternately to the creamed mixture with the cold water.

  5. Add the extract, then beat the mixture for one minute before folding in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  6. Bake in a greased and flour-dusted layer pan at 350°F (175°C) until done.

Assemble

  1. Once baked, cool the cake and split it into layers.

  2. Crush the bananas with ⅓ cup sugar and place between the layers.

Make the icing

  1. For the icing, beat the egg lightly and add the milk.

  2. Mix the sugar, flour, and salt together, then add to the milk and egg mixture.

  3. Cook in a double boiler until thick, stirring constantly.

  4. Remove from heat, add butter and vanilla, and spread over the cake.

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 + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  5. Banana + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,470 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the cake and thickens the icing as it cooks.
Eggs
Egg whites add lift and airiness, while yolks enrich the batter and help bind it.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep its crumb tender and moist.
Bananas
Add moisture and banana flavor between the layers.

The step that matters

Cook the icing in a double boiler, stirring constantly. The egg and flour mixture thickens as it heats and can curdle, lump, or scorch if it gets too hot. Gentle heat and constant stirring keep it smooth and evenly thick.

Swap the banana

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Bananathe original

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