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Dessert

Banana Pie

A custard pie with bananas, baked and topped with whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and banana are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,470 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Banana Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the crust

  1. Bake the pie crust.

  2. Let the crust cool.

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk, sugar, egg yolks, and flour until thickened.

  2. Let the mixture cool.

Assemble and bake

  1. Slice the bananas.

  2. Place the sliced bananas in the crust.

  3. Pour the custard over the bananas.

  4. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  5. Spread the stiff egg whites on top.

  6. Return the pie to the oven to brown.

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. Milk + bananatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,470 recipes

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

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + bananatop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,725 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness and structure as they set with heat.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture so the custard holds its shape when sliced.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that forms a light topping which browns in the oven.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, giving it body and a soft texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the topping brown.

The step that matters

Boil the custard until thickened. Flour and egg yolks only thicken when the mixture reaches a full boil. If it stays underheated, the custard stays thin and may not set properly once cooled and layered.

Swap the banana

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Bananathe original

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