Skip to main content
Dessert

Banana Pie

A pie made by mashing ripe bananas, adding sugar and vanilla, optionally a sour apple, covered with frosting and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Banana and vanilla 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 ↓

Banana Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Mash enough ripe bananas to fill a pie crust.

  2. Add sugar and vanilla to taste.

  3. Optionally, add a finely grated very sour apple instead of vanilla.

  4. Cover with frosting.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until lightly brown.

  2. Cool 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. Banana + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

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

Ripe bananas
Provide the main filling, adding moisture and a soft, sweet body when mashed.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown lightly in the oven.
Frosting
Covers the filling and adds sweetness and a soft surface that browns slightly.

The step that matters

Bake until lightly brown. Mashed bananas are soft and moist, so baking only until lightly browned sets the filling without drying it out or letting the sugar scorch.

Swap the banana

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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