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Dessert

Apple Tapioca Pudding

A pudding made with apples, tapioca, water, salt, and optional sugar, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Apple 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.

Prepare the tapioca

  1. Soak the tapioca in 3 cups of lukewarm water in a warm place, stirring occasionally.

Steam the apples

  1. Place the apples in a deep dish with 1 cup of lukewarm water, cover, and steam in a 350°F (175°C) oven until soft, turning them if they cook at the bottom.

  2. If the apples are not very sweet, fill the center with sugar.

Bake and serve

  1. If there is more than 1/3 cup of liquid, remove some before pouring the soaked tapioca over the apples.

  2. Bake for 1 hour after adding the tapioca.

  3. Serve cold with cream or warm with hard sweet 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. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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
Swells as it soaks and sets into a soft, pudding-like texture around the apples.
Apples
Provide the main body and fruit flavor, softening as they steam and bake.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples if they are not naturally sweet.

The step that matters

Removing excess liquid before adding the tapioca. Too much liquid over the apples keeps the tapioca from setting into a thick pudding, so the excess must be poured off first.

“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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