Baby's First Banana Custard (brain boosting recipe)
A tried-and-true recipe, designed by Registered Dietitians, this brain boosting banana custard is creamy, naturally sweet and meant support your baby's growing brain. Made with simple ingredients like egg yolk and ground flax for healthy fats and choline, it's a smooth, spoonable first food perfect for 6-month-olds - and still loved by toddlers.
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"I made this for my 10 month old and she loved it! She's not a very big eater so I was surprised when she finished this entire recipe over two meals! Will be making again!" - Nieve
We have a confession, Jessica has had this recipe in her back pocket for seven years! Yep, that's right, seven years. Here's the thing, life gets busy and it's hard to know when it's the best time to share something this good. And we decided, the time has come!
I (Jess) poached a LOT of egg yolks for my baby. Little Judah didn't get tired of them so I'm not sure why I decided to invent this recipe. Maybe because I was tired of making them the same old way?? Regardless of why, he gobbled this custard up too and we definitely think your baby will too.
If eggs are a hit for your baby, don't forget to make anda bhurji which a fun Indian take on scrambled eggs or the infamous apple mug cake which literally only takes two minutes to make.
And, if you're finding that purees is a good fit for your baby, you'll be excited to try our creamy edamame puree, pumpkin pudding and daal! All of these recipes are baby friendly and a smooth puree type of consistency.
Why this recipe works
🕒 5 minute prep time
🧠 Contains brain boosting nutrients like choline!
🥣Perfect starter texture for spoon feeding
🌾 Offers a source of fibre to support infant gut health
👶 Baby friendly from 4 months+
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Key ingredients
Banana: you'll want a ripe banana for this recipe that you'll mash up for natural sweetness and to help create a silky texture for the custard.
Egg yolk: most custard recipes call for egg yolk, so that's exactly what we've done here. If you have the means, you can use DHA omega-3 fortified eggs for even more of a brain boost! If you're new to omega-3, don't worry, it's not scary additive, it's an essential fatty acid that's very important for early brain development.
Milk: we recommend using whole cow's milk or whatever milk fat percentage you have at home. If you choose a milk alternative, your custard might be on the watery side.
Flaxseed: for babies we recommend ground flaxseed so they can absorb the nutrition from it more easily.
Cinnamon: this is a sweet spice that will add even more flavor to the baby custard!
Allergen information & substitutions
This recipe contains two of the top priority allergens according to Health Canada: eggs and milk. If your baby has a confirmed egg allergy, then this recipe is unfortunately not going to be a good fit for them since it's going to be difficult to achieve the custard texture with out the yolks! If your child has a cow's milk protein allergy, you could use a plant beverage such as soy or oat milk instead.
For the most recent step-by-step recommendations for introducing food allergens to infants, visit our video lesson in Start Solids Confidently, your go-to resource for feeding babies.
How to make this recipe
The full recipe is below, but here are a few key steps to visualize the process.
- Mash the banana really well with a fork. Add in the egg yolks and mash with fork to combine.
2. Stir in the milk, flaxseed and cinnamon. Let this stand for 5 minutes to allow the ground flaxseed to thicken up just slightly. Then, mix again one more time.
3. Pour liquid mixture into two custard dishes or ramekins that are safe for the oven - or use several if you'd like! Place the dishes into a deep baking pan and add water to create a water bath.
4. Bake until a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean. The custard has set and can now be cooled to feed to your baby.
How to serve this banana custard at each baby & toddler stage
4 - 12 months: This recipe has a really unique texture in that it's very smooth. Depending on how well you whisk the ingredients together, it can be as smooth as yogurt or you can leave it so that it's a bit lumpy. This means, it's totally appropriate to offer it to your baby at four months if you've already started solids.
You can spoon feed this custard to your baby. Or, you can let them self feed which is a great way to actually use the spirit of baby led weaning, a feeding approach parents around the world appreciate.
12 months+ : By this stage, we definitely want to see your baby doing most of the feeding themselves. Offer your baby a spoon and let them practice bringing the custard to their own mouth.
Recipe FAQ
Friends, we've made this one real easy. You are more than welcome to spoon feed it to your baby, especially if that is what has been working for you. A gentle reminder, if your baby is around 8 - 10 months (we know that's a generous range), we do want them to experiment with self-feeding since it is a skill!
Since we're dedicated to pre-emptively answering as many questions for you as we can, we tried freezing and defrosting this custard. Unfortunately, the water separated out upon defrosting and it became really weird. We strongly caution against freezing!
Yes! In fact, we've tried this recipe without ground flaxseed and it works out beautifully.
Since you're offering this to a baby, we recommend keeping it in the fridge for no more than 3 days. It's up to you if you want to offer it reheated or cold. If heating, be mindful of hot spots that could burn your baby's mouth.
Lastly, let your baby go all in! Yes. You can literally pour the custard into a bowl and let your baby go to town. It's a wild and sweet mess, but that too is all a part of the sensory process. You can check out Nita's little one enjoying something of a similar texture in the video below.
Play + books that match this recipe
We are huge believers in play and literacy for young children, including babies. Use these tools to allow for open ended play and time to read. Bonus: your child gets to interact with a food in a way that's fun and play based. You can find even more foodie fun baby books here.
If you tried this baby banana custard recipe or any other recipe on our blog, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let us know how it went in the 📝 comments below. Thanks for visiting!
Baby Banana Custard
Ingredients
- 1 banana
- 2 egg yolks
- ½ cup breastmilk or prepared infant formula or if child is older than 9 months: whole cow’s milk or alternative
- 1 tablespoon ground flaxseed
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 F.
- Mash the banana really well with a fork. Add in the egg yolks and mash with fork to combine. Then, stir in the milk, flaxseed and cinnamon. Let this stand for 5 minutes to allow the ground flaxseed to thicken up just slightly. Then, mix again one more time.
- Pour into two custard dishes – or use several if you’d like!
- Place the dishes into a baking pan.
- Pour water into baking pan until the water level reaches halfway up the custard dish. This is called a hot water bath.
- Bake for 25-35 minutes or until a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean. Every oven works slightly differently, so keep that in mind!
- You can serve this after it has cooled. Or, keep it in the fridge for a few hours to serve it your baby cold. There’s nothing wrong with serving safe food that is cold!
Even after 35min in the oven, when I poked the custard with a knife, moisture seemed to ooze out. Is that to be expected?
A little bit but you do want to see that the custard has set.
Loved this! We didn't have flax seed handy so I skipped that, but the rest of the recipe stands without it. For anyone else wondering, we use Alimentum formula for our twins and that cooked really well in this recipe. In fact, I LOVED the custard and couldn't taste the Alimentum at all--bonus. Mixed results from the actual babies, but that's kinda where we are right now. 🙂 I split one of the custards between them and it was a pretty good quantity. We saved the other custard to try again tomorrow.
Awesome! Thank you for sharing your tips!
I baked mine for 45 mins in the oven and it was extremely watery? I used almond milk but otherwise followed the recipe to a T. What did I do wrong?
Almond milk is essentially almond flavoured water so that might be why it didn't turn out!
I made this for my 10 month old and she loved it! She’s not a very big eater so I was surprised when she finished this entire recipe over two meals! So glad I was able to get all that goodness into her! I didn’t have ground flax so I subbed 1tbsp ground oats and it worked excellently. Will be making again!!
It's amazing what the power of the banana can do with some kids!!
My baby LOVED this so much.
Amazing! Thanks for sharing 🙂
My 15 month old enjoyed this custard! I love the nutrition it contains and how creamy it is too. I used a food thermometer to test when it was done, which takes a lot of guesswork/anxiety out. I suspect that the size and ripeness of the banana likely affects the cook time, so it would be hard to go just by time. I split the batter over three ramekins, and they were done in 27 minutes. I will definitely make this again. Thanks for another tasty and nutritious recipe!!
We LOVE food thermometers - no guessing required! Glad your baby enjoyed this recipe 🙂
I like to try this recipe on my grandson but I have a question about using bananas in the recipe..can it cause constipation???
Thanks for the interest in this recipe - nope, this shouldn't been constipating at all!
Lovely recipe i will try it asap for my baby☺️
My baby loved this!
Loved this recipe so much. Such a fun breakfast idea and so filled with good nutrients!