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Banana Souffle Pudding

A baked banana souffle pudding made with bananas, eggs, flour, sugar, and meringue topping.

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 the base

  1. Rub two bananas through a sieve and slice the other two.

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

  3. Cream the yolks and sugar together thoroughly.

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

  5. Boil the rest of the milk with the butter and pour it onto the Florador mixture.

  6. Return to the saucepan and boil for 3-4 minutes, stirring constantly.

  7. Add the sieved bananas and quickly stir into the yolk and sugar mixture.

Bake the pudding

  1. Whip two egg whites until stiff and fold into the mixture along with the sliced bananas.

  2. Pour into a well-buttered pie dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30-40 minutes.

  3. Make a meringue with the remaining egg whites and 1 ounce of sugar, then cover the pudding with it.

  4. Decorate with cherries and angelica, sprinkle with castor sugar, and bake at 300°F (150°C) for about 4 minutes until slightly brown.

  5. 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

Bananas
Give the pudding its main flavour and a soft, moist body when sieved and sliced.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and set the custard, while whipped whites lighten the mixture for a souffle-like rise.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture, giving the pudding structure so it holds its shape.
Florador or ground rice
Thickens the milk and gives a smooth, tender texture when cooked.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens with the flour and starch into a custard.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the yolks cream to a smooth, pale mixture.

The step that matters

Fold the whipped egg whites in gently. Whites hold air only while stiff; overmixing deflates them, so the pudding loses the lift that makes it souffle-like when baked.

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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