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 ↓
Banana Custard
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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the custard
Beat the eggs until very light.
Add the milk and sugar, then mix in the sliced bananas.
Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake until set.
Top and serve
Beat the egg whites with the powdered sugar until stiff peaks form.
Spread the meringue over the baked custard and brown in the oven.
Serve with whipped cream.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + bananatop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,470 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 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
- Beaten eggs set the custard and give it its structure as it bakes.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid base that sets with the eggs into a soft, creamy custard.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard and helps keep it tender.
- Bananas
- Add flavour and natural sweetness, and soften as the custard bakes.
- Egg whites
- Whipped with powdered sugar, they form a stable meringue that browns on top.
The step that matters
Bake the custard until set. Baking only until the custard is just set keeps it smooth and tender. Overbaking causes the egg proteins to tighten, making it grainy and watery.
Swap the banana
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, sugar, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Strawberryfits better
- Raspberryfits about as well
- Bananathe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, sugar, 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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