Skip to main content
Dessert

Banana Float

A chilled dessert made with milk, sugar, egg yolks, corn starch, vanilla, bananas, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Banana Float

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 Float

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Add sugar, beaten egg yolks, corn starch mixed with a little milk, and vanilla.

  3. Stir constantly until thickened.

  4. Slice in 3 or 4 bananas before removing from heat.

Top and serve

  1. Whip the egg whites to make a frosting and spread it on top of the float.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  4. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the custard is built on.
Corn starch
Swells with heat and thickens the milk into a smooth custard.
Egg yolks
Add thickening power and richness to the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the flavor.
Bananas
Add fruity flavor and soft texture to the custard layer.
Egg whites
Whipped into a light foam that forms the frosting topping.

The step that matters

Stir constantly until thickened. Corn starch needs heat and continuous stirring to swell evenly and thicken. Stopping can scorch the milk on the bottom of the pan or leave lumps of undissolved starch in the custard.

Swap the banana

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, egg, corn, 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 recipesCorn CakeCorn Cake90 recipesCorn Starch CakeCorn Starch Cake89 recipesCorn CakesCorn Cakes22 recipes