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Dessert

Manioca Cream

A custard-like dessert made from manioca, milk, eggs, vanilla, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Manioca Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cream

  1. Soak the manioca in water until soft.

  2. Boil the milk.

  3. While boiling, stir in the manioca.

  4. While boiling, stir in the beaten yolks of the eggs mixed with sugar.

  5. Cook until sufficiently thick.

  6. Pour into a dish to cool.

  7. Once cold, add the vanilla.

Finish with meringue

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Sweeten and flavor the egg whites.

  3. Stir part of the egg whites into the cream.

  4. Place the remaining egg whites on top.

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.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

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

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Manioca
Thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the cream its body and set.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the manioca thickens into a creamy custard.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and help set the cream; whites are beaten to add airy lightness.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and the beaten egg whites.

The step that matters

Stir the yolks into the boiling milk mixture. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if overheated or added too quickly. Keeping the cooking steady while the cream thickens helps it turn smooth rather than grainy.

“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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