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Dessert

Strawberry Tapioca

A sweet pudding made with tapioca, strawberries, and sugar, baked until clear and served cold with cream or custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Strawberry Tapioca

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Soak the tapioca in cold water overnight.

Assemble

  1. In the morning, place half of the soaked tapioca in a pudding dish.

  2. Sprinkle sugar over the tapioca, then add the strawberries and more sugar.

  3. Top with the remaining tapioca.

  4. Fill the dish with water to cover the tapioca by about ¼ inch.

  5. Adjust sweetness with more sugar if needed.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until the tapioca looks clear.

  2. Serve cold with cream or custard.

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).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tapioca
Thickens the juices as it cooks and turns the pudding clear and gel-like.
Strawberries
Provide the main fruit flavor and moisture that the tapioca absorbs.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and balances its natural tartness.

The step that matters

Baking until the tapioca looks clear. Tapioca starch must be fully cooked to swell and turn translucent. Underbaked tapioca stays chalky and can leave the pudding grainy, so judge doneness by the clear appearance rather than by time alone.

“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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