Skip to main content
Dessert

Bananas, Bavaroise of

A custard dessert made with milk, sugar, cornflour, egg yolks, vanilla, and sliced bananas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Bananas, Bavaroise of

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Add the sugar and stir until dissolved.

  3. Wet the cornflour with a little cold milk, then stir it into the boiling milk.

  4. Stir over the heat until the mixture thickens.

  5. Add the egg yolks and vanilla essence, mixing well.

  6. Let the mixture cool.

Set and serve

  1. Peel and slice the bananas, then mix them into the cooled mixture.

  2. Pour the mixture into one or two wetted molds.

  3. Once completely cold, immerse the molds in tepid water to loosen.

  4. Turn out onto a dish and serve with cold fruit syrup.

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and sets with the thickener as it cools.
Cornflour
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the bavaroise its body and set.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help make the custard smooth and creamy.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and softens the set.
Bananas
Add flavour and soft texture throughout the set custard.

The step that matters

Stir over the heat until the mixture thickens. Cornflour only thickens fully when the mixture reaches a boil and is stirred constantly. Stopping early leaves a thin, lumpy base that will not set firmly in the mould.

Swap the banana

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Peachfits about as well
  3. Blueberryfits about as well
  4. Bananathe original

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