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Dessert

Tapioca Pudding

A baked or boiled pudding made from tapioca, milk, butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla or bitter almonds.

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

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Tapioca Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Cook the tapioca

  1. Wash the tapioca and let it simmer gently in the milk on low heat for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Make the pudding

  1. Allow the mixture to cool, then mix in the butter, sugar, and well-beaten eggs. Add vanilla or bitter almonds for flavor.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter a baking dish, pour in the pudding mixture, and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

  2. If boiling, add a little more tapioca and boil in a buttered basin for 1.5 hours.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Tapioca
Its starch swells in the milk and thickens the pudding as it cooks.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the tapioca absorbs and turns into a creamy base.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the pudding a tender, custard-like body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the flavor of the milk and eggs.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before adding the eggs. Eggs added to a very hot mixture can scramble instead of blending smoothly. Letting the tapioca mixture cool first lets the beaten eggs mix in evenly, so the baked pudding sets smooth and custard-like.

“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.

More tapioca pudding recipes

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