Why it works: Sugar and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Tapioca Pudding
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 the custard
Soak the tapioca in 1 pint of milk near the fire, stirring often, for 2 to 3 hours.
Add 1 pint of cold milk, eggs, sugar, raisins, salt, and spice to the soaked tapioca, then mix well and pour into a baking dish.
Bake
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour and 30 minutes.
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.
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Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,155 recipes
Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 during soaking and thickens the pudding as it bakes, giving it body.
- Eggs
- Set during baking to give the pudding its custard structure.
- Milk
- Hydrates the tapioca and forms the liquid base of the custard.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and contributes to the pudding's flavour.
The step that matters
Soaking the tapioca. Soaking hydrates the tapioca starch before baking. Without enough soaking, the grains stay firm and the pudding may turn out gritty or unevenly thickened.
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Raisinthe original
- Lemonfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar. 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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