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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: Vanilla and banana are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,430 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. 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.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, mix milk, salt, and beaten egg yolks.

  2. In a separate bowl, stir cornstarch into sugar, then add to the milk mixture when hot.

  3. Cook until thickened, then remove from heat and stir in vanilla.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the custard over the sliced bananas in a baked pie crust.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff, gradually adding 1 tablespoon of sugar. Spread the meringue over the pie and brown in a 350°F (175°C) 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. Vanilla + bananatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 a smooth texture when cooked.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture as it heats, giving the custard body so it holds its shape.
Egg whites
Whipped into a meringue that sets and browns in the oven, forming the pie's topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and, in the meringue, stabilizes the whipped egg whites.
Bananas
Provide flavor and soft texture layered under the custard.

The step that matters

Cook the custard until thickened. Cornstarch only thickens fully when the mixture reaches a boil while stirring. Stopping early leaves the custard runny, so it will not hold its shape when the pie is sliced.

Swap the banana

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Peachfits about as well
  3. Blueberryfits about as well
  4. Bananathe original

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