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Dessert

Banana Blanc Mange

A cold banana dessert made with cornstarch, milk, sugar, vanilla, and sliced bananas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Mix the cornstarch with a little cold milk.

  2. Scald the remainder of the milk.

  3. Pour the hot milk onto the cornstarch, stirring constantly.

  4. Return to the heat and cook for five minutes, stirring constantly.

  5. Add sugar to taste.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat, let cool, then add vanilla and thinly sliced bananas.

  2. Pour into cups that have been dipped in cold water.

  3. Serve very cold.

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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  3. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

Vanilla and sugar 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

Cornstarch
Thickens the milk into a smooth, sliceable pudding as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the base of the pudding and provides moisture and creaminess.
Bananas
Add fruity flavor and soft texture to the cooled pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the milk and banana flavors.

The step that matters

Pour the hot milk onto the cornstarch, stirring constantly. Cornstarch clumps if it meets hot liquid without constant stirring. Keep it moving so the starch disperses evenly before the mixture thickens on the heat.

Swap the banana

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Peachfits about as well
  3. Blueberryfits about as well
  4. Bananathe original

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