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Tapioca with Pineapple

A sweet tapioca pudding flavored with pineapple and served with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Tapioca with Pineapple

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the tapioca

  1. Soak the tapioca overnight in enough water to cover.

  2. Add 2 pints of water and cook slowly until transparent.

Sweeten and bake

  1. Stir in 1½ cups of sugar and ¼ teaspoon of salt.

  2. Bake for 1 hour.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from the oven and add ½ can of grated pineapple.

  2. Serve with whipped 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. Sugar + pineappletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

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

  3. Pineapple + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,574 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Tapioca
Its starch swells and thickens the liquid, giving the pudding its body.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and balances the tartness of the pineapple.
Pineapple
Adds bright acidity and fruity flavor to the sweet pudding.

The step that matters

Cook the tapioca slowly until transparent. Tapioca starch swells and turns clear as it gelatinizes. Too much heat or too little stirring can scorch the bottom or leave lumps before the starch is fully cooked through.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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