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Cranberry Pumpkin Banana Bread

"Good way to use up some of your left over pumpkin and cranberries from the holidays!"

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pumpkin and banana work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 99 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

The recipe

1 9x5-inch loaf
Prep20 min
Cook1 hr

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease a 9x5-inch loaf pan with the softened butter.

  2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, ground cinnamon and ground nutmeg.

  3. In a large bowl, beat the packed brown sugar, pumpkin puree, whole cranberry sauce, egg and mashed banana until smooth.

  4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and stir just until no dry flour remains. Do not overmix.

  5. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared loaf pan and smooth the top.

  6. Bake for 55 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the top springs back when lightly pressed.

  7. Cool the loaf in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn it out onto a wire rack to cool completely before slicing.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Pumpkin + bananatop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together99 recipes

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

  2. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + cranberrytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together116 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  4. Cinnamon + pumpkintop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together1,744 recipes

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

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together30,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar share little aroma chemistry, yet 30,777 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Flavor stand-ins for the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, cinnamon, butter, sugar, pumpkin, cranberry, sauce):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Gingerabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, cinnamon, butter, sugar, pumpkin, cranberry, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).