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Dessert

Apple-and-tapioca Pudding

A baked pudding of soaked tapioca and apples, sweetened with sugar and served with cream.

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-and-tapioca Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Soak the tapioca

  1. Cover the tapioca with 1 pint of water and soak overnight.

  2. In the morning, add 1 pint of hot water to the soaked tapioca.

  3. Cook the tapioca in a saucepan over low heat without stirring until clear.

  4. If the water is absorbed, add more to keep the mixture pourable.

Bake the apples

  1. Pare and core the apples, then place them in a pudding dish.

  2. Add 4 tablespoons of sugar and 1 cup of water to the apples.

  3. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven until the apples are tender.

  4. Fill the apple cores with tapioca and cover with remaining tapioca.

  5. Let the dish cool completely before serving.

Serve

  1. Serve with sugar and cream, or warm with cream or 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Apple + creamtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,089 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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
Thickens the liquid into a clear, pourable, set pudding as it cooks and cools.
Apples
Provide tender fruit and flavor that soften during baking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the apples.

The step that matters

Cooking the tapioca without stirring. Tapioca starch can clump and scorch on the bottom of the pan if stirred or over-heated, so low heat and patience let the grains swell evenly until clear.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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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