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Dessert

Banana Custard

A custard made with sugar, egg, milk, vanilla, corn starch, marshmallow whip, and sliced bananas, served chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 Custard

serves 6

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, combine sugar, egg, milk, vanilla, and corn starch. Stir to dissolve.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil and cook slowly for 5 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat and fold in marshmallow whip.

  4. Rinse 6 small custard cups in cold water and pour in the custard mixture.

  5. Chill in the refrigerator until set.

Serve

  1. To serve, unmold the custard and cover with sliced bananas dipped in sugar.

  2. Sprinkle with chopped nuts, top with a teaspoon of marshmallow whip, and garnish with a maraschino cherry.

  3. Drizzle a teaspoon of cherry syrup over the custard before serving.

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. Vanilla + nutstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

  5. Vanilla + corntop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, sliceable custard as it cooks.
Egg
Adds richness and helps give the custard body as it is cooked.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and carries the sweetness and flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps balance the flavour of the bananas.
Marshmallow whip
Folded in for a light, airy texture and a soft, sweet topping.
Bananas
Add fresh fruit flavour and a soft texture on top of the custard.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard after it reaches a boil. Cornstarch only thickens fully when it boils, and the egg can scramble if heated too hard. Cook gently and keep stirring so the custard turns smooth and thick rather than lumpy or grainy.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

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