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Dessert

Banana Custard

A dessert of rice cooked in milk with sugar, butter, bananas, brandy, and thick custard.

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

Banana Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Cook the rice and sugar in the milk until soft.

  2. Add the butter and let it cool.

  3. Spread the mixture over a glass dish.

Assemble and serve

  1. Cover with sliced bananas and sprinkle with caster sugar.

  2. Pour the brandy over the bananas, then add the thick custard.

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. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  4. Rice + bananatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together228 recipes

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

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rice
Softens as it cooks in the milk, thickening the base and giving it a creamy body.
Milk
Cooks the rice and forms the creamy liquid that makes up the base.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the bananas and sugar caramelise lightly on top.
Bananas
Add sweetness, soft texture and a fruity aroma to the dish.
Brandy
Adds a warm, aromatic flavour that complements the bananas and custard.

The step that matters

Cooking the rice in the milk until soft. Milk and sugar can scorch on the bottom of the pan, and rice must be fully softened so it blends smoothly. Low heat and gentle stirring prevent burning and undercooked grains.

Swap the banana

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

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

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