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Dessert

Banana Pie

A custard banana pie topped with meringue baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Mix ¾ cup sugar, flour, and salt in a bowl, then stir into the milk.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks and cook until thick.

  4. Let the custard cool.

Assemble and bake

  1. Slice the bananas into the cooled pie crust.

  2. Pour the custard over the bananas.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  4. Gradually add 3 tablespoons sugar to the egg whites.

  5. Spread the meringue over the custard.

  6. Brown in the oven at 400°F (200°C).

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. Flour + eggtop 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 milk mixture into a custard as they cook.
Egg whites
Whipped into meringue, they provide the light, airy topping that browns in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and meringue, and helps the meringue hold its structure.
Flour
Stabilizes the custard so it thickens without becoming runny.
Bananas
Provide the fruity flavor and soft texture layered under the custard.

The step that matters

Cook the custard until thick. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but overheating can scramble them. Cooking gently until the custard coats a spoon gives a smooth filling that sets properly once cooled.

Swap the banana

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

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

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