Skip to main content
Dessert

Caramel Banana Custard

A custard made with milk, egg yolks, sugar, butter, and sliced bananas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Caramel Banana Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar until light.

  3. Pour the hot milk onto the egg yolk mixture, stirring constantly.

  4. Add the butter and mix well.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook the mixture in a double boiler until thickened.

  2. Slice the bananas and fold them into 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 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
Their proteins set on gentle heat, thickening the custard into a smooth, spoonable texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour and gives the custard its body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the beaten yolks become light and smooth.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavour and a silkier mouthfeel.
Bananas
Add fruity sweetness and aroma that flavour the finished custard.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard until thickened. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set with heat, but if the mixture gets too hot or cooks too fast, the proteins tighten and curdle. A double boiler applies gentle, even heat to prevent this.

Swap the banana

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

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

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

More banana custard recipes

Pie 5Frozen 3 See all 22 →

You might also like

Banana FillingBanana Filling16 recipesBanana SherbetBanana Sherbet10 recipesBanana FloatBanana Float9 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes