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Dessert

Cassava Pudding

A custard-like pudding made from milk, cassava, coconut, eggs, butter, and sweetened with sugar and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,294 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cassava 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 custard

  1. In a saucepan, heat the milk.

  2. Stir in the cassava, coconut, eggs, butter, salt, sugar, and vanilla.

  3. Cook over low heat, stirring until thickened like boiled custard.

  4. Pour into a serving dish.

Top and brown

  1. Beat the egg white with the sugar until stiff peaks form.

  2. Spread the egg white mixture over the pudding and smooth it out.

  3. Brown in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C).

Serve

  1. Serve warm or cold, with jelly.

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. Coconut + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Cassava + coconuttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together33 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens into a custard-like pudding.
Cassava
Thickens the mixture and gives the pudding its body and chewy texture.
Eggs
Set with heat to add structure and richness to the custard.
Egg white
Whipped into a meringue topping that becomes light and browns in the oven.
Shredded coconut
Adds fat, moisture and a distinct coconut flavour to the pudding.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.

The step that matters

Cook the custard over low heat. Stirring over low heat keeps the eggs and starch from scorching or curdling as the mixture thickens. Too much heat can make the custard grainy or cause it to stick to the pan.

Swap the cassava

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, coconut, egg, butter, sugar, vanilla):

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Cassavathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, coconut, egg, butter, sugar, vanilla. 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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