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Dessert

Banana Custard

A custard made with milk, sugar, eggs, cornstarch, and bananas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and banana 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 Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, heat the milk and sugar over medium heat until warm.

  2. In a bowl, whisk together the eggs and cornstarch until smooth.

  3. Slowly add the warm milk mixture to the egg mixture, stirring constantly.

  4. Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring until thickened.

  5. Remove from heat and let the custard cool.

Assemble and serve

  1. Slice the bananas thinly and place them in a serving dish.

  2. Pour the cooled custard over the sliced bananas.

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 + bananatop 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. Sugar + bananatop 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

Eggs
Set and thicken the custard as they cook, giving it body.
Cornstarch
Thickens the custard by swelling in the warm liquid, giving it a smooth texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and gives it creaminess.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the flavor of the bananas.
Bananas
Add natural sweetness and a soft, fruity flavor to the dessert.

The step that matters

Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring until thickened.. Egg proteins can scramble if the custard gets too hot, so low heat and constant stirring keep it smooth while the cornstarch thickens it.

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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