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Dessert

Tapioca Cream

A creamy dessert made from tapioca, milk, eggs, sugar, and vanilla, topped with meringue.

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

  1. Soak the tapioca in water for a few hours.

  2. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

Make the cream

  1. Add the soaked tapioca to the boiling milk.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with sugar until well combined.

  3. Stir the egg yolk mixture into the milk and tapioca, and let it boil briefly.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool.

Finish with meringue

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue over the cooled cream and flavor with vanilla.

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
Starch that swells in the milk and thickens the cream as it boils.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the tapioca and egg yolks thicken.
Egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the cream as they set with heat.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps stabilize the beaten egg white foam.
Egg whites
Whip into a foam that forms the meringue topping.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg yolk mixture into the hot milk. Egg yolk proteins set when heated and can scramble or curdle if they meet hot liquid too quickly. Stirring constantly while adding them keeps the cream smooth, and the tapioca needs a full boil to thicken properly.

“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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