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Dessert

Peach Tapioca

A dessert of baked peaches topped with a sweet tapioca syrup, served cold with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Syrup and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Peach Tapioca

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Soak the tapioca in cold water for several hours or overnight.

  2. Fill a baking dish halfway with canned peaches and sweeten to taste.

  3. Bake the peaches at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

Make the tapioca topping

  1. Combine the tapioca syrup with enough boiling water to thin it and add ½ teacup of sugar.

  2. Boil the mixture until clear.

  3. Pour the clear mixture over the baked peaches.

  4. Bake slowly at 300°F (150°C) for another 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve cold with cream and sugar.

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. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Syrup + creamtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

  5. Peach + syruptop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together210 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Tapioca
Thickens the syrup as it cooks, giving the dish a clear, jelly-like set.
Peaches
Provide the fruit base and sweetness, and soften as they bake.
Sugar
Sweetens the peaches and the thickened syrup.
Cream
Adds richness and a cooling contrast to the cold, sweet fruit.

The step that matters

Boil the tapioca mixture until clear. Tapioca starch only thickens fully once it has been heated and its granules swell and become translucent. Stopping early leaves the mixture cloudy and loose, so it will not set properly over the peaches.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against syrup, sugar, 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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