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Dessert

Banana Cream

A custard of milk, eggs, sugar, and corn starch served over sliced bananas and topped with browned meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Banana Cream

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, combine milk, egg yolks, sugar, and corn starch to make a custard.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thickened.

Assemble

  1. Slice the bananas and place them in a serving dish.

  2. Pour the hot custard over the sliced bananas.

Top and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form to make a meringue.

  2. Spread the meringue over the custard.

  3. Brown slightly in a 300°F (150°C) oven.

  4. Serve cold.

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. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

  3. Corn + bananatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that sets when cooked.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard; whites whip into the meringue topping for structure.
Corn starch
Thickens the custard by swelling in hot liquid as it cooks.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps stabilise the whipped egg white meringue.
Bananas
Provide the fruit flavour and sweetness layered beneath the custard.

The step that matters

Cook the custard until thickened. Stirring constantly over medium heat keeps the egg and starch mixture smooth. Overheating can scramble the eggs, while undercooking leaves the cornstarch unable to thicken the custard.

Swap the banana

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Bananathe original

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