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Dessert

Banana Pudding

A custard dessert made with corn starch, sugar, butter, egg yolks, boiling water, bananas, and topped with whipped cream or beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Banana Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a dish, mix corn starch, sugar, and butter.

  2. Stir in the beaten egg yolks.

  3. Pour in boiling water to create a thick custard, stirring constantly.

  4. Bring to a boil while stirring.

Assemble and serve

  1. Layer sliced bananas in a serving dish and pour the custard over them.

  2. Top with whipped cream or beaten egg whites.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

  4. Corn + bananatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Butter + bananatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,536 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Corn starch
Thickens the custard as it heats, giving it a smooth, sliceable body.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set creamy as it thickens.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the flavor of the bananas.
Bananas
Provide the main fruit flavor and soft texture layered under the custard.
Whipped cream or egg whites
Form a light, airy topping over the custard.

The step that matters

Bring the custard to a boil while stirring. Starch granules only swell and thicken fully once heated to a boil. Stirring constantly keeps heat even and prevents lumps or scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the banana

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, sugar, butter, egg, 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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