Skip to main content
Dessert

Banana Pie

A baked pie with a sugar‑flour base, vinegar‑water mixture, butter, sliced bananas, and meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Banana Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Mix sugar and flour in the bottom of the pie crust.

  3. Combine vinegar and water, then add to the mixture.

  4. Add butter and mix well.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake until set.

  2. Slice bananas and layer them in the pie.

  3. Top with meringue and brown slightly in the oven.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Butter + bananatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,536 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the filling its body.
Flour
Thickens the filling and gives it structure as it sets.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender texture.
Bananas
Provide the main fruit flavour and sweetness in the layers.
Meringue
Forms the topping and browns in the oven for colour.

The step that matters

Top with meringue and brown slightly in the oven. Meringue browns quickly because its sugar caramelises at high heat. Watch it closely, since a few minutes too long can scorch the topping before the pie is heated through.

Swap the banana

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, vinegar, butter. 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.

You might also like

Banana FillingBanana Filling16 recipesBanana SherbetBanana Sherbet10 recipesBanana FloatBanana Float9 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes