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Dessert

Cream Tapioca Pudding

A sweet pudding made from milk, tapioca, eggs, and sugar, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Norton, Caroline Trask · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cream Tapioca Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Scald the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Soak the tapioca in it for one hour, or until it is transparent.

  3. Remove the mixture from the stove.

  4. Add the beaten yolks and sugar.

Bake and top

  1. Bake in a buttered pudding dish for half an hour.

  2. Remove from the oven.

  3. Cover the top with a layer of jam or jelly.

  4. Spread over it a meringue made from the whites of the eggs and four tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar.

  5. Brown in the oven.

  6. Serve.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

276Calories
14 gProtein
13 gFat
25 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Norton, Caroline Trask. 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. See the original page.

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

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard and enrich it, while whites form the meringue topping.
Tapioca (in the method)
Soaking softens and swells the starch grains, thickening the milk into a pudding.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the tapioca swells in and sets into the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and the meringue topping.

The step that matters

Browning the meringue. Egg white meringue needs enough oven heat to brown lightly without over-drying the custard beneath. Watch it closely, since it can scorch quickly once the sugar caramelises.

“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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