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 ↓
Cherry and Tapioca Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Soak the tapioca overnight in cold water.
In the morning, bring the soaked tapioca to a boil with 2 teacups of hot water.
Cook and set
Add the stoned cherries and sugar to sweeten.
Once the cherries are cooked through, pour the mixture into a mold.
Set the mold in a cool place to stiffen.
Serve
Serve with sugar and whipped cream.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Tapioca
- Its starch thickens and sets the pudding as it cooks and cools.
- Stoned cherries
- Provide the main fruit flavour, plus sweetness and acidity that balance the starch.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cherries and adds flavour to the pudding.
The step that matters
Soaking the tapioca overnight. Dry tapioca pearls need time to hydrate fully. If they are not soaked long enough, they stay firm and chalky in the finished pudding instead of turning soft and translucent.
“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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