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Dessert

Apple Tapioca

A baked dessert of apples and tapioca sweetened with sugar and nutmeg, topped with cream or whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Apple Tapioca

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 tapioca in warm water for 3 to 4 hours.

  2. Pare the apples and quarter or slice them.

  3. Place the apples in a pudding dish.

  4. Sweeten the soaked tapioca to taste and add nutmeg to the tapioca.

Bake

  1. Pour the tapioca over the apples.

  2. Bake for 1 hour at 350°F (175°C) or until the apples are soft.

Top and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then add powdered sugar to the egg whites.

  2. Spread the egg whites over the top and brown slightly in the oven.

  3. Serve with sugar and cream.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

Nutmeg and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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 during soaking and thickens the liquid into a soft, pudding-like set.
Apples
Provide the fruit base and soften during baking, releasing tartness and moisture.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they form a light topping that browns in the oven.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves easily into the whipped egg whites, sweetening the topping and helping it hold its shape.

The step that matters

Spread the egg whites over the top. Egg whites must be beaten until stiff so they hold their peaks; under-beaten whites slump into the pudding and brown unevenly.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (nutmeg, sugar, cream, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against nutmeg, sugar, cream, egg. 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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