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Dessert

Cherry Tapioca Pudding

A chilled dessert of tapioca pearls in cherry juice, topped with whipped cream and egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Cherry Tapioca Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Soak the tapioca in cold water until absorbed.

  2. Simmer the tapioca with the cherry juice for 30 minutes.

  3. Add the drained cherries and mix well.

  4. Pour into a mold and refrigerate until set.

Serve

  1. To serve, whip the cream and fold in the egg white and powdered sugar.

  2. Add flavoring to the whipped cream and serve with the pudding.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  3. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
Thickens as it absorbs liquid and sets the pudding into a soft, jelly-like texture.
Cherries
Provide the main fruit flavor and tartness, along with moisture and color.
Heavy cream
Whipped, it adds richness and a light, airy topping for the pudding.
Egg white
Whipped to stiff peaks, it adds lightness and volume to the cream topping.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the whipped cream and dissolves easily into it.

The step that matters

Simmering the tapioca. Tapioca must cook long enough for the starch granules to swell fully and turn clear; undercooked pearls stay chalky and firm. Stirring keeps the mixture from scorching on the bottom of the pan.

“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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