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Dessert

Banana Cream Pie

A pie made with butter, sugar, egg yolks, milk, sherry or angelica, mashed bananas, and whipped egg whites, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Banana Cream Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Warm the butter in a basin.

  2. Mix in the crushed sugar, egg yolks, milk, sherry or angelica, and mashed bananas.

  3. Pour the mixture into a deep dish.

  4. Gently stir in the whipped egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until done, covering with paper to prevent quick baking.

  2. Remove from the oven and serve.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Sherry + bananatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together117 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Add richness and help the filling set as it bakes.
Egg whites
Whipped, they lighten the filling and give it an airy structure.
Mashed bananas
Add banana flavour and moisture to the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a smooth, tender texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and body to the custard-like filling.

The step that matters

Gently stir in the whipped egg whites. Folding rather than stirring keeps the air in the whipped whites. Vigorous mixing deflates them, which makes the pie denser and less light after baking.

Swap the banana

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Bananathe original

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