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Tapioca Pudding

Tapioca pudding made with tapioca, milk, butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla or almond essence, lemon rind, baked or boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 8 ingredients
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Tapioca Pudding

Why it works: Milk and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Tapioca Pudding

6 persons

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the tapioca

  1. Wash the tapioca.

  2. Let it stew gently in the milk by the side of the fire for 1/4 hour, occasionally stirring it.

  3. Let it cool a little.

Make the pudding

  1. Mix with it the butter, sugar, and eggs, which should be well beaten.

  2. Flavour with either vanilla or almond essence, putting in about 12 drops of the essence of almonds or vanilla, whichever is preferred.

  3. Butter a pie-dish, and line the edges with puff-paste.

  4. Put the pudding into the pie-dish.

  5. Bake in a moderate oven for an hour.

  6. If the pudding is boiled, add a little more tapioca, and boil it in a buttered basin for 1-1/2 hour.

Make the tartlets

  1. Roll out the paste to a thickness of about 1/2 inch.

  2. Butter some small round patty-pans, line them with the paste, and cut off the superfluous paste close to the edge of the pan.

  3. Put a small piece of bread into each tartlet (this is to keep them in shape).

  4. Bake in a brisk oven for about 10 minutes, or rather longer.

  5. When they are done and are of a nice colour, take the pieces of bread out carefully.

  6. Replace the bread with a spoonful of jam or marmalade.

Serve

  1. Dish them high on a white d'oyley, piled high in the centre, and serve.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

689Calories
28 gProtein
15 gFat
108 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Almond1 almond (1.2g)7

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

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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 + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Almond + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together858 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetylpyrazine (roast).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tapioca (in the method)
Thickens the milk as its starch swells and softens during gentle simmering, giving the pudding body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the tapioca cooks in, providing moisture and a creamy texture.
Eggs
Enrich the pudding and set as it bakes, giving it a firmer, custard-like structure.

The step that matters

Stewing the tapioca in the milk. Tapioca must stew gently and be stirred so it does not settle and scorch on the base of the pan. Its starch swells and softens in hot milk, so it needs enough time to fully thicken before cooling and mixing with the eggs.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Peasfits better
  2. Pecansfits better
  3. Cocoafits better
  4. Almondthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, bread, egg. 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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