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Dessert

Tapioca Jelly

A gelatinous dessert made from tapioca, water, cinnamon or mace, sugar, lemon juice, and white wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Tapioca Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rinse the tapioca thoroughly and soak it in cold water for 5 hours.

  2. Bring 1 pint of cold water to a boil.

Make the jelly

  1. Mash and stir the soaked tapioca into the boiling water.

  2. Add the cinnamon or mace and let it simmer gently until thick and clear.

  3. Mix in the sugar, lemon juice, and white wine.

  4. Taste and add more sugar if needed, then pour the jelly into cups.

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. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Cinnamon + white winetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together560 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 jelly as its starch swells and gelatinizes when heated.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the acidity of the lemon juice and wine.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.
White wine
Adds aroma and acidity to the jelly's flavour.

The step that matters

Simmering the tapioca until thick and clear. Tapioca starch must be fully heated to swell and gelatinize; if it is undercooked, the jelly stays cloudy and does not set properly. Stirring gently prevents the grains from sticking and scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Marjoramfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Cinnamonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, white wine. 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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