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Dessert

Tapioca Cream

A creamy dessert made from soaked tapioca, milk, sugar, vanilla, and eggs, served chilled.

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

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 Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tapioca

  1. Soak the tapioca in the water for 2 hours.

  2. Transfer the soaked tapioca to a double boiler with the milk.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks until creamy.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  3. Mix a little of the hot milk with the egg yolks.

  4. Pour the yolk mixture back into the boiler.

  5. Stir until thick.

  6. Remove from heat.

  7. Add the vanilla extract.

  8. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Serve

  1. Serve very cold in a glass bowl.

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

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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, giving the pudding its body and slightly chewy texture.
Rich milk
Forms the main liquid base and, with the eggs, makes the pudding rich and creamy.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard when heated, and whites folded in add lightness.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the mild flavour of the milk and eggs.

The step that matters

Stir the yolks into the hot mixture gently and keep it below a boil. Egg yolks can scramble if they meet very hot liquid too quickly. Tempering with a little hot milk first, then stirring over gentle heat, lets the yolks thicken the custard smoothly instead of curdling.

“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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