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Dessert

Tapioca Pudding

A sweet custard made from soaked tapioca, milk, eggs, sugar, salt, nutmeg, topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Vehling, Joseph Dommers, 1879-1950. fmo · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Tapioca Pudding

Why it works: Milk and tea work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 738 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Tapioca Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tapioca

  1. Soak a cupful of tapioca (after washing it through several waters) in warm water for three or four hours.

Make the custard

  1. Pour over three pints of sweet milk, add the beaten yolks of six eggs, one half cupful of sugar, one half teaspoon of salt, and one half teaspoon of nutmeg.

  2. Place the mixture in a pan and set it in another pan of boiling water on the stove, and let it cook as thick as custard.

Bake and top

  1. Then put it in the stove with something under it, to keep from scorching at the bottom; let remain until it dries on top.

  2. Meanwhile, make a meringue from the six egg whites flavored to taste, pour it over the pudding and smooth; brown slightly.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

288Calories
14 gProtein
14 gFat
26 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Puddingnot in our table0

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

By Vehling, Joseph Dommers, 1879-1950. fmo. 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.

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. Milk + teatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together738 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  2. Tea + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Tapioca
Thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the pudding its body.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and set the custard; whites form the meringue topping.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base that the tapioca swells in and the custard sets from.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the custard stay tender.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard in a water bath. Cooking gently in a pan set over boiling water keeps the egg custard from curdling or scorching, so it thickens smoothly as custard.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Peppermintfits less well

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

More tapioca pudding recipes

Apple 146Cream 36Pineapple 22Lemon 21Peach 15Baked 14 See all 530 →

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