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Dessert

Puddings

A lemon-flavored tapioca pudding made with egg whites and powdered sugar, baked until browned and served cold with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tapioca

  1. Soak the tapioca in 1 cup of cold water overnight.

  2. Add 3 cups of cold water.

  3. Cook on the stove until transparent.

  4. Boil the lemon slices in a little water until tender.

  5. Add the boiled lemon slices to the tapioca with sugar and salt to taste.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  2. Gradually add the powdered sugar and lemon juice to the beaten egg whites.

  3. Spread the egg mixture over the tapioca pudding.

  4. Bake until browned.

Serve

  1. Serve cold with cream.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Thickens the liquid as it cooks, giving the pudding its body and translucent look.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they form a light foam that bakes into a browned topping.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the meringue and helps it stay stable while it is folded and baked.
Lemon
Adds acidity and aroma to the pudding through its sliced peel and juice.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites must be whipped until they hold firm peaks so the topping can trap air and bake light rather than flat or runny. Any trace of fat or yolk can prevent them from whipping fully.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Strawberryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, cream. 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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