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Dessert

Apple Tapioca

A dessert of cooked tapioca mixed with boiled water, poured over apples filled with sugar and nutmeg, then baked until soft.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,790 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Apple Tapioca

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tapioca

  1. Mix the tapioca, sugar, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Slowly pour the boiling water over the mixture.

  3. Cook in a double boiler for 20 minutes.

Prepare the apples

  1. Core and peel the apples.

  2. Fill the holes with sugar and nutmeg.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the tapioca mixture over the prepared apples.

  2. Cover the apples.

  3. Bake until the apples are soft.

  4. Serve with cream and additional sugar if desired.

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. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Granulated tapioca
Thickens the liquid into a pudding as it cooks and sets.
Tart apples
Provide the fruit base and acidity that balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps flavor the tapioca and apples.

The step that matters

Cook the tapioca in the double boiler. Tapioca must be cooked long enough for its starch to swell fully and turn clear and thick. Gentle, indirect heat in a double boiler helps prevent scorching and uneven thickening.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, 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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