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Dessert

Banana Pie

A baked banana pie with a custard filling and a powdered sugar topping.

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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the crust

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Line a deep pie tin with a rich crust.

  3. Slice the bananas and place them in the pie crust.

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk to boiling point.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks, then mix in the sugar and flour.

  3. Add the beaten yolk mixture to the boiling milk and cook until thick.

  4. Once slightly cooled, stir in the vanilla and pour the mixture over the bananas.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then add the powdered sugar and spread over the pie.

  2. Bake in the oven until the top is browned.

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. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Bananas
Provide the main fruit flavor and soft texture under the custard.
Milk
Forms the base of the custard that sets when cooked.
Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the custard, and whites whipped into a meringue topping for structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the meringue hold its shape.
Flour
Thickens the custard so it holds together when cut.

The step that matters

Cooking the yolk mixture into the boiling milk. Egg yolks can scramble if added too quickly to hot liquid. Adding the yolks gradually while stirring, then cooking until thick, gives a smooth custard.

Swap the banana

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

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

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