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Dessert

Banana Pudding

A baked dessert made with butter, sugar, egg yolks, vanilla, bananas, flour, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. Beat together the butter, sugar, egg yolks, and vanilla extract in a bowl.

  2. Gently mix in the sliced bananas and sifted flour.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

  4. Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding mold.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 40 minutes.

  2. Turn out onto a dish and serve hot with raspberry sauce.

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Vanilla + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 whites
Whipped whites trap air, giving the pudding a light, risen texture.
Egg yolks
Yolks add richness and help bind the batter into a smooth, set custard-like crumb.
Flour
Starch sets during baking, giving the pudding its body and structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps tenderize the batter as it creams with the butter.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist crumb.
Bananas
Add moisture, natural sweetness and banana flavor to the pudding.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air in the whites; stirring or deflating them makes the pudding dense instead of light and risen.

Swap the banana

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

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

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