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Dessert

Banana Pudding

A layered dessert of sponge cake, bananas, custard, and whipped egg whites, optionally flavored with wine and peaches.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and peach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 558 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Banana Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Layer the base

  1. Layer sliced sponge cake and sliced bananas in a glass dish.

Make the custard

  1. Combine milk, sugar, cornstarch, and vanilla in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over medium heat until thickened, stirring constantly, then remove from heat.

  3. Stir in wine if using.

  4. Pour the custard over the cake and bananas.

Top with meringue

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Spread the beaten egg whites over the top.

Prepare the peaches

  1. Sugar the peaches and let them sit for a few hours.

  2. Scald the peaches.

  3. Cool the peaches.

  4. Add the peaches to the custard.

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. Vanilla + peachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together558 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Banana + peachtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together130 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sponge cake
Soaks up the custard and becomes a soft, moist layer.
Bananas
Soften in the custard and add fruity sweetness.
Milk
Forms the custard base, providing moisture and richness.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth custard as it cooks.
Egg whites
Whipped into stiff peaks, they give the topping an airy, set structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the peaches release their juices.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard until thickened. Cornstarch thickens only when the mixture is heated enough for its starch granules to swell. Stirring constantly prevents lumps and scorching on the bottom of the pan, giving a smooth custard.

Swap the banana

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

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Apricotfits about as well
  3. Blackberryfits about as well
  4. Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, vanilla, egg, wine, peach. 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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