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Dessert

Banana Custard

A custard made with egg, corn starch, sugar, vanilla, boiled milk, ripe banana, and topped with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and banana 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 Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, combine the egg, corn starch, sugar, and vanilla extract with a little of the boiled milk.

  2. Beat the mixture until smooth, then stir it into the remaining boiled milk.

  3. Cook over medium heat for five minutes, stirring constantly until thickened.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the custard over baked pastry.

  2. Slice the banana and arrange the slices on top of the custard.

  3. Finish by covering with whipped cream.

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. Vanilla + bananatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Vanilla + milktop 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. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Egg
Thickens the custard as it cooks and adds richness and structure.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk into a smooth custard when heated.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and gives it body.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances its flavour.
Ripe banana
Adds fruit flavour and sweetness as a topping.

The step that matters

Cook the custard while stirring constantly. Egg and corn starch thicken only as the mixture heats, and without constant stirring the egg can curdle or lumps can form on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the banana

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Strawberryfits about as well
  4. Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, corn, sugar, vanilla, milk, cream. 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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