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Easy Banana Cream Pie

An easy to make banana cream pie using vanilla wafers, bananas and vanilla pudding. Rich, creamy and delicious!

This recipe’s ingredient list has no crust or pastry, so it bakes more like a fruit dish than a pastry pie.

By tastykitchen · From Open Recipes · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and banana match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,430 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 6
Prep35 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk (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. Peel and slice the bananas into thin rounds.

  2. In a large bowl, whisk the instant vanilla pudding mix with the milk for about 2 minutes until thickened.

  3. Let the pudding stand for 5 minutes to firm up.

  4. Stand vanilla wafers upright around the inside edge of a pie dish, then cover the bottom with a single layer of wafers.

  5. Arrange a layer of banana slices over the wafers, then spoon in about a third of the pudding and spread it evenly.

  6. Repeat with wafers, banana and pudding until all are used, finishing with pudding on top.

  7. Arrange a few wafers or banana slices on top for decoration.

  8. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour so the pie sets before slicing and serving.

By tastykitchen. 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. Vanilla + bananatop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Vanilla + milktop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together19,175 recipes

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

  3. Milk + bananatop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,464 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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