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Frozen Banana Custard

A chilled custard made with bananas, eggs, milk, sugar, gelatin, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and gelatin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,628 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Frozen Banana Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Soak the gelatin in the cold water.

  2. Heat the milk in a saucepan.

  3. Add the sugar and eggs to the milk, stirring continuously.

  4. Add the soaked gelatin to the mixture.

  5. Stir until the mixture thickens.

  6. Cool the mixture.

Finish and freeze

  1. Add the bananas pressed through a sieve.

  2. Fold in the whipped cream.

  3. Freeze until solid.

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. Cream + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Banana + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,470 recipes

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

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the custard as they set when gently heated, giving it body.
Gelatin
Sets the custard so it holds its shape and stays smooth when frozen.
Cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture when folded in.
Bananas
Provide the main flavour and sweetness, and body from their pulp.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs thicken and the gelatin sets.

The step that matters

Stir until the mixture thickens. Egg proteins thicken the custard as it heats, but overheating can curdle it. Stir steadily and watch for it to coat a spoon, then cool it promptly.

Swap the banana

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Bananathe original

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