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Dessert

Banana Pudding

A custard made with corn starch, sugar, butter, eggs, bananas, and egg whites, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,345 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Banana Pudding

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. Mix corn starch, white sugar, and butter in a dish.

  2. Pour boiling water into the mixture to create a thick custard.

  3. Stir in the beaten egg yolks and bring to a boil.

Assemble and bake

  1. Slice the ripe bananas thinly and layer them in a serving dish.

  2. Pour the custard over the bananas.

  3. Beat the egg whites with sugar until stiff peaks form.

  4. Spread the stiff egg whites on top of the custard.

  5. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until the top is golden.

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. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Corn + bananatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Butter + bananatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,536 recipes

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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, creamy texture.
Egg whites
Whipped with sugar to form a stiff, airy topping that sets and browns in the oven.
Corn starch
Thickens the custard as it heats with the liquid, giving it body.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich mouthfeel and smoother custard texture.
Ripe bananas
Provide the main flavour and sweetness, and soften as they sit under the custard.

The step that matters

Bring the custard to a boil after adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks can scramble if heated too fast or left unstirred. Keep stirring while the custard comes to a boil so it thickens smoothly; the cornstarch needs that heat to set.

Swap the banana

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, sugar, butter, 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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