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Dessert

Tapioca Pudding

A custard-like dessert made with tapioca, milk, butter, eggs, sugar, and vanilla, topped with browned egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Tapioca Pudding

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 ↓

Tapioca Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tapioca

  1. Soak the tapioca in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. In a double boiler, combine the soaked tapioca and 1 quart of milk. Steam until thoroughly cooked.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the butter, egg yolks, sugar, and 1 pint of milk.

  4. Add the vanilla and mix well.

Bake and top

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered baking dish.

  2. Place the baking dish in another dish filled with hot water to prevent boiling.

  3. Bake until the custard sets.

  4. Beat the egg whites until stiff. Spread the beaten egg whites on top.

  5. Brown lightly.

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.

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

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Sugar and vanilla 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

Tapioca
Swells during cooking to thicken the milk into a pudding texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the tapioca cooks in and the custard sets from.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set into a creamy texture when baked.
Egg whites
Beaten stiff, they form a light topping that browns in the oven.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to browning of the topping.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Baking the custard in a water bath. Placing the baking dish in hot water moderates the heat so the egg custard sets gently. Direct high heat would boil or curdle the eggs, leaving a grainy texture.

“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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