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Dessert

Tapioca Jelly

A gelatinous dessert made from soaked tapioca, water, sugar, lemon extract, served with sweetened cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Tapioca Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the tapioca in cold water overnight.

Make the jelly

  1. In a small saucepan, combine the soaked tapioca and water.

  2. Boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Stir in the sugar and lemon extract.

Mold and serve

  1. Pour into molds dipped in cold water.

  2. Serve with sweetened cream flavored with lemon or wine.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Lemon + creamtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Its starch thickens when boiled and sets into a soft jelly as it cools.
White granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the mild flavor of the tapioca.
Lemon extract
Adds a bright citrus aroma to the jelly.

The step that matters

Boiling and stirring the tapioca. Tapioca starch must cook fully to swell and thicken, and constant stirring keeps it from sticking, scorching, or forming lumps before it is poured into molds to set.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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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