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Dessert

Corn Meal Tapioca Pudding

A steamed pudding made from cornmeal, tapioca, milk, molasses, ginger, raisins, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Corn Meal 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.

Make the pudding base

  1. Mix corn meal and tapioca.

  2. Stir slowly into scalded milk.

  3. Cook in a double boiler until tapioca becomes transparent, stirring occasionally.

  4. Add molasses, salt, ginger, butter, and raisins.

Bake and serve

  1. Turn into a buttered baking dish.

  2. Pour cold milk over the top.

  3. Place in the oven and bake at 350°F (175°C) for one hour, stirring once during baking.

  4. Serve with Hard Sauce or 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Corn + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together412 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Ginger + raisintop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Corn meal
Thickens the milk and gives the pudding its grainy, hearty body.
Tapioca
Thickens the custard as it cooks and turns clear when the starch is fully gelatinized.
Scalded milk
Forms the liquid base that the starches thicken and bake into a creamy pudding.
Molasses
Adds dark sweetness and a deep, caramel-like flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the pudding.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness that contrast with the soft pudding.

The step that matters

Cooking the tapioca in the double boiler. Tapioca and corn meal must be cooked long enough for their starches to swell and thicken the milk fully. Stopping early leaves the pudding thin and the tapioca pearls opaque. Gentle, indirect heat in a double boiler prevents scorching and curdling of the milk.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, milk, raisin, butter, molasses):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, milk, raisin, butter, molasses. 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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