Skip to main content
Dessert

Banana Pudding

A custard-like dessert made with vanilla wafers, bananas, sugar, egg yolks, flour, butter, vanilla, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Mix flour and sugar in a bowl.

  2. Dissolve the mixture with milk.

  3. Add beaten egg yolks and butter, then cook in a double boiler until thick.

Assemble and serve

  1. Slice bananas lengthwise and layer them with vanilla wafers in a pudding dish.

  2. Pour the thickened mixture over the wafers and bananas.

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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  5. Banana + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,470 recipes

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

Vanilla and sugar 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

Flour
Starch that thickens the milk into a smooth, sliceable custard.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they cook and add richness and a smooth texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel.
Vanilla wafers
Soften as they absorb the custard, giving the pudding its layered texture.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard until thick in a double boiler. Gentle, indirect heat keeps the egg yolks from overheating and curdling. The flour starch needs to cook fully to thicken properly, so the custard should be stirred and cooked until it coats a spoon.

Swap the banana

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

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

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

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesBanana FillingBanana Filling16 recipesBanana SherbetBanana Sherbet10 recipesBanana FloatBanana Float9 recipes