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Dessert

Bee Brand Date Tapioca

A baked pudding made with tapioca, milk, butter, egg, sugar, nutmeg, and chopped dates.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Bee Brand Date Tapioca

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Cook the tapioca

  1. Scald the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Stir in the tapioca gradually.

  3. When it begins to thicken, add the butter, beaten egg, sugar, nutmeg, and dates.

Combine

  1. Pour a portion of the hot milk onto the egg.

  2. Return the mixture to the double boiler and combine with the other ingredients.

Bake

  1. Pour into a buttered pudding dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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

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

  2. Nutmeg + datestop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together194 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Milk + datestop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Tapioca
Starch that swells in hot milk and thickens the pudding as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the tapioca thickens into a creamy custard.
Egg
Adds protein that helps set and enrich the pudding as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the dairy flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
Dates
Add natural sweetness, chewy texture, and a caramel-like flavor.

The step that matters

Pour a portion of the hot milk onto the egg. Adding hot liquid to the beaten egg gradually, while whisking, warms it slowly. This keeps the egg proteins from scrambling into lumps before they blend into the pudding.

Swap the dates

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, egg, sugar, nutmeg. 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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