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Banana Souffle Pudding

A baked banana custard with a meringue topping, made from bananas, eggs, flour, sugar, butter, milk, and flavored with maraschino or vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Banana and vanilla 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 Souffle Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Rub two bananas through a sieve.

  2. Slice the other two bananas.

  3. Separate the yolks from the whites of the eggs.

  4. Cream the yolks and sugar together thoroughly.

  5. Mix the Florador and flour to a smooth paste with a little milk.

Make the custard

  1. Boil the rest of the milk with the butter.

  2. Pour the hot milk and butter onto the Florador mixture.

  3. Return the mixture to the saucepan. Boil for 3-4 minutes, stirring constantly.

  4. Add the sieved bananas.

  5. Stir the bananas quickly into the yolk and sugar mixture.

  6. Whip two egg whites until stiff.

  7. Fold the stiff egg whites into the mixture along with the sliced bananas.

  8. Pour the batter into a well-buttered pie dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30-40 minutes.

  2. Make a meringue with the remaining egg whites and 1 oz. sugar. Cover the pudding with the meringue.

  3. Decorate with cherries and angelica. Sprinkle with castor sugar.

  4. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for about 4 minutes until slightly brown. Serve hot.

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. Banana + vanillatop 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

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

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

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

Eggs
Yolks enrich and thicken the custard, while whipped whites lighten the batter and form the meringue.
Bananas
Provide the main banana flavour and moisture, with sliced pieces adding texture.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture so the batter holds its shape while baking.
Florador or ground rice
Thickens the milk into a smooth, stable custard base.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the custard and coats the dish to prevent sticking.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, which the starch thickens on boiling.

The step that matters

Fold the stiff egg whites into the mixture. Whites trapped as a foam give the pudding its lightness. Folding gently keeps the air in; stirring hard deflates the foam and the souffle-style rise is lost.

Swap the banana

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, sugar, rice, butter, milk, 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.

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