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Dessert

Baked Tapioca Pudding

A baked dessert of tapioca, milk, butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla or lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Henrietta Latham Dwight · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Baked Tapioca Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tapioca

  1. Soak 1½ cups of pearl tapioca for two hours in a quart of rich milk.

  2. Put the soaked tapioca in a double boiler and cook until it looks clear.

Make the pudding

  1. Remove from the fire and stir in two slightly heaping tablespoonfuls of butter and a scant half cup of sugar.

  2. When the mixture is cold, add four lightly beaten eggs and flavor with vanilla or grated lemon rind added while cooking.

  3. Butter a mould, sprinkle with dried bread crumbs, pour the mixture into it, and bake.

  4. Turn out onto a platter and serve hot with a foaming sauce.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

378Calories
14 gProtein
25 gFat
25 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
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 Henrietta Latham Dwight. 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.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Sugar and milk 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

Pearl tapioca (in the method)
Thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the pudding its body and a soft, set texture.
Rich milk
Provides the liquid base that the tapioca softens in and cooks into a creamy custard.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel to the cooked tapioca.
Eggs
Set during baking to bind the pudding and give it a firm, sliceable structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds to its soft, tender texture.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before adding the eggs. Beaten eggs added to a very hot mixture can scramble or curdle, leaving lumps. Letting it cool first lets the eggs blend smoothly so the baked pudding sets evenly.

“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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