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Dessert

Banana Float

A custard-based dessert with sliced bananas and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Banana Float

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 Float

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a double boiler, combine milk, sugar, egg yolks, and cornstarch.

  2. Stir over heat until thick, then add vanilla flavoring.

  3. Let the custard cool.

Make the meringue

  1. Beat egg whites to stiff peaks and mix in 2 tablespoons sugar.

Assemble and serve

  1. Slice bananas and place in a dish.

  2. Pour custard over bananas and top with beaten egg whites shaped like snowballs.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. 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. Milk + bananatop 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set with gentle heat.
Egg whites
Beaten to stiff peaks, they form the light, airy topping.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture so the custard becomes smooth and thick.
Bananas
Provide the fruit base and sweet, soft flavor under the custard.

The step that matters

Stirring the custard over heat until thick. Egg yolks and cornstarch thicken the milk as it heats. Heating too fast or without stirring can scramble the yolks or leave lumps, so the custard should be stirred constantly over gentle heat until it coats a spoon.

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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