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Dessert

Banana Snowball

A custard dessert with bananas topped with whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and banana 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 Snowball

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a double boiler, combine milk, sugar, egg yolks, salt, butter, and cornstarch.

  2. Stir over heat until thick, then add vanilla flavoring and let cool.

Prepare the topping

  1. Beat egg whites to stiff peaks, then mix in 2 tablespoons of sugar.

Assemble and serve

  1. Slice bananas and place them in a dish.

  2. Pour the custard over the bananas and top with the egg white mixture shaped like snowballs.

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. Vanilla + bananatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  5. Walnut + vanillatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,730 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness as they set with gentle heat.
Egg whites
Whip into stiff peaks to form a light, airy topping.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture so the custard becomes smooth and firm when cooked.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard.
Bananas
Provide the fruit base and sweet, soft flavor under the custard.

The step that matters

Stir the custard over heat until thick. Egg yolks and cornstarch thicken only with gentle, steady heat. Too much heat can curdle the eggs, while too little leaves the custard runny.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, egg, butter, vanilla, banana. 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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