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Dessert

Banana Cream

A chilled banana custard made with milk, cornflour, sugar, egg yolks and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Cream

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Mash the bananas and set aside.

  2. Mix the cornflour with a little milk until smooth.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, heat the remaining milk with the sugar until boiling.

  2. Add the cornflour mixture to the boiling milk and stir well.

  3. Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring constantly.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the egg yolks and vanilla essence.

Finish and serve

  1. Fold in the mashed bananas and serve chilled.

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

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

  4. Banana + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,470 recipes

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

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

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

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

Cornflour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, set cream as it cooks.
Egg yolks
Add richness and body, helping the cream set smoothly when stirred in.
Bananas
Provide banana flavour and a soft, sweet texture throughout the cream.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the cream and softens its flavour.

The step that matters

Cook the cornflour mixture while stirring constantly. Cornflour starch must reach a boil and be stirred continuously, or it clumps and fails to thicken evenly. Stirring also keeps the milk from scorching on the base of the pan.

Swap the banana

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Peachfits about as well
  3. Blueberryfits about as well
  4. Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, egg, 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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