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Dessert

Baked Tapioca Pudding

A sweet pudding made from pearl tapioca, milk, butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla or lemon rind, baked and served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Baked 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.

Prepare

  1. Soak the tapioca in milk for 2 hours.

  2. Cook the soaked tapioca in a double boiler until clear.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in butter and sugar.

  4. Let the mixture cool, then add beaten eggs and flavor with vanilla or lemon rind.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter a mold and sprinkle with bread crumbs.

  2. Pour the mixture into the mold and bake at 350°F (175°C).

  3. Turn out onto a platter and serve hot with a foaming sauce.

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

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

Pearl tapioca
Thickens the milk as it cooks and gives the pudding its characteristic chewy body.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, setting the pudding as it bakes.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the tapioca swells in and cooks into a custard.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer flavor and a softer, more tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the richness of the eggs and butter.

The step that matters

Cook the soaked tapioca until clear. Tapioca must be cooked long enough for its starch granules to fully swell and turn clear; undercooked tapioca stays chalky and firm. Cooking gently in a double boiler avoids scorching the milk.

“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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