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Frozen Banana Custard

A chilled custard made with bananas, milk, eggs, sugar, gelatin, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Frozen Banana Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Soak the gelatin in cold water.

  2. Heat the milk in a saucepan, then add sugar and eggs, stirring continuously.

  3. Add the soaked gelatin and stir until the mixture thickens.

Finish and freeze

  1. Cool the mixture, then add bananas pressed through a sieve.

  2. Fold in the whipped cream.

  3. Freeze until solid.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  3. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Sugar and milk 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
Thicken the custard as they cook and set it into a smooth base.
Gelatine
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when frozen and sliced.
Cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture when folded in.
Bananas
Provide the main flavour and natural sweetness, with body from the pulp.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs thicken into a custard.

The step that matters

Add the soaked gelatine and stir until the mixture thickens. Gelatine must be fully dissolved into warm custard, not lumpy or boiling. Overheating can weaken its setting power, and undissolved pieces leave a rubbery or grainy texture after freezing.

Swap the banana

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Bananathe original

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