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Dessert

Banana Pie

A banana custard pie made with a pre-baked crust, egg yolk custard thickened with cornstarch, and topped with stiff‑peaked egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 custard

  1. In a bowl, beat the yolks of the eggs until light.

  2. Mix in the cornstarch until well combined.

  3. Gradually add the boiling milk (or water) while stirring continuously until thickened.

  4. Let the custard cool, then fold in the sliced bananas.

Assemble and top

  1. Pour the mixture into the pre-baked pie crust.

  2. Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form and spread over the pie.

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. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + bananatop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

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

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 as they set with the starch.
Cornstarch
Thickens the boiling milk into a smooth, sliceable custard.
Milk
Forms the custard base and carries the sweetness and body of the filling.
Bananas
Add fruity flavour and soft texture to the custard.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks to form a light topping that spreads over the pie.

The step that matters

Thickening the custard. Stir the boiling liquid continuously while adding it to the yolks and starch. Constant stirring prevents lumps and scrambled egg, and lets the cornstarch swell evenly into a smooth, thickened custard.

Swap the banana

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonfits about as well
  4. Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk. 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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