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Dessert

Banana Pudding

A custard-like dessert made with bananas, milk, cornstarch, sugar, and eggs, topped with whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Banana and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,470 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. 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. Peel and slice bananas, add to saucepan with milk.

  2. Heat mixture to boiling.

  3. Stir cornstarch in a little cold milk until smooth.

  4. Add the cornstarch mixture to the boiling mixture.

  5. Add sugar and beaten egg yolks, stir until thickened.

Top and bake

  1. Pour mixture into a pudding dish.

  2. Beat egg whites to a stiff froth.

  3. Add a little sugar to the beaten egg whites.

  4. Spread the egg whites over the top of the pudding.

  5. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for a few minutes until slightly browned.

  6. Serve.

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

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

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

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

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  4. Banana + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,102 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Bananas
Provide the main flavour and soft body of the pudding as they cook in the milk.
Milk
Forms the base of the custard that the other ingredients thicken.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk into a smooth, set custard as it heats.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the custard, adding richness and body.
Egg whites
Whipped to a froth and spread on top, they bake into a light, browned topping.

The step that matters

Stirring the cornstarch and egg yolks into the custard. Cornstarch must be fully dispersed in cold milk first, or it clumps. Egg yolks can curdle if they are added to very hot liquid without stirring, so the custard should be stirred until it thickens.

Swap the banana

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, 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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