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Baked Bananas

Baked bananas served with a currant jelly sauce, optionally fried and dusted with powdered sugar and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Baked Bananas

Why it works: Banana and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,536 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Baked Bananas

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare and bake

  1. Peel a section of skin from each banana.

  2. Loosen the pulp of each banana.

  3. Replace the skins on the bananas.

  4. Bake the bananas in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the skins are black and the bananas are heated through.

  5. Remove the pulps from the skins.

  6. Pile the pulps in the shape of a pyramid.

Make the currant jelly sauce

  1. Melt the currant jelly in boiling water.

  2. Dilute a teaspoon of cornstarch with cold water.

  3. Cook the cornstarch mixture in the jelly for 5-6 minutes.

  4. Add butter to the sauce.

  5. Add lemon juice to the sauce.

  6. Stir the sauce well.

Fry and serve

  1. Remove the skins and threads from the bananas for frying.

  2. Cut the bananas in halves lengthwise and then crosswise.

  3. Sprinkle the banana pieces with powdered sugar and lemon juice.

  4. Let the banana pieces stand for a few minutes.

  5. Coat the banana pieces in egg and crumbs.

  6. Fry the coated banana pieces in deep fat until golden.

  7. Drain the fried banana pieces on soft paper.

  8. Serve the bananas on a hot dish with a sweet sauce if desired.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,536 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Currant + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Bananas
Their pulp softens and sweetens when baked, and the frying coating turns golden and crisp.
Currant jelly
Melts into a sweet, fruity base for the sauce.
Cornstarch
Thickens the jelly sauce into a smooth, glossy consistency when cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounder, smoother mouthfeel to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet jelly and balances the bananas.

The step that matters

Cook the cornstarch mixture in the jelly for 5-6 minutes. Cornstarch thickens only when it is heated enough for its starch granules to swell and gelatinize. Cooking it briefly and stirring well prevents lumps and a thin, starchy sauce.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against banana, butter, lemon, sugar. 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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