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Dessert

Banana Pudding

A custard-like dessert made with sweet milk, cornstarch, sugar, egg whites, bananas, and served cold with sweetened cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Add sugar and salt to the boiling milk.

  3. Dissolve cornstarch in a little cold water, then add it to the milk mixture and boil.

  4. Remove from heat and quickly stir in the beaten egg whites until well combined.

Assemble and serve

  1. Layer part of the pudding in a dish, add slices of bananas, then more pudding and more bananas.

  2. Set the dish on ice and serve cold with sweetened cream.

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

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

  2. Milk + bananatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,470 recipes

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

  3. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Cornstarch
Thickens the milk into a smooth, sliceable pudding as it boils.
Egg whites
Add airy structure and lightness to the custard when stirred in off the heat.
Sweet milk
Forms the base of the pudding and carries the flavour and body of the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the flavour of the milk and bananas.
Bananas
Contribute fruity flavour and soft texture between the layers of pudding.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten egg whites. Stir them in quickly off the heat so they blend in without overcooking, scrambling, or deflating. Heat from the thickened milk sets the whites gently, and delay can leave the mixture lumpy or less airy.

Swap the banana

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, 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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