Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓
Banana Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the bananas
Peel the bananas and place them in a deep glass dish.
Sweeten the bananas with ½ cup of sugar.
Make the custard
In a saucepan, heat 4 cups of sweet milk with ½ cup of sugar and a small piece of butter until it boils.
Dissolve 2 tablespoons of corn starch in a little milk and add to the boiling mixture along with 2 beaten egg yolks. Stir until thickened.
Pour the thickened mixture over the bananas.
Frost and flavor
Frost the top with the 2 beaten egg whites and flavor with vanilla, rose, or almond extract.
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.
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Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,187 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together35,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,943 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Milk + corntop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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 (in the method)
- Provide the main fruit flavor and sweetness in the dish.
- Corn starch
- Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth custard as it heats.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness and help the custard set when cooked with the milk.
- Egg whites
- Whipped or beaten to form a light topping over the custard.
- Sweet milk
- Forms the liquid base of the custard and adds creaminess.
The step that matters
Stir the custard until thickened. Corn starch must be fully dissolved and kept stirring while the mixture boils. Starch granules swell and thicken the liquid only when heated, and stopping early or letting it scorch leaves the custard thin or lumpy.
“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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