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Dessert

Tapioca Cream

A sweet custard made from tapioca, milk, eggs, sugar, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Tapioca Cream

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 Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tapioca

  1. Pick over the tapioca and soak it in cold water to cover for 1 hour.

  2. Add the soaked tapioca to the milk and half of the sugar, and cook in a double boiler until the tapioca is transparent.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks slightly.

  2. Add the remaining sugar and salt to the yolks.

  3. Gradually stir in the hot tapioca mixture.

  4. Return the mixture to the double boiler and cook until it thickens.

  5. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

  6. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a glass serving dish or glass cups.

  2. Serve.

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

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

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 and turns transparent when cooked, giving the pudding its thickened, slightly chewy body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the tapioca cooks in, providing creaminess and richness.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard when heated, and whites folded in lighten the texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps soften the tapioca as it cooks.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the hot tapioca mixture. Adding hot liquid to beaten yolks too quickly can scramble them. Adding it gradually warms the yolks evenly so the custard stays smooth.

“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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