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Dessert

Tapioca Ice

A chilled dessert made from boiled tapioca, sugar, and pineapple, served with cream and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Sugar and pineapple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,841 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Tapioca Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tapioca

  1. In the morning, put the soaked tapioca on the stove and bring it to a boil.

  2. Add the sugar and boil until the tapioca is clear.

  3. Pour the hot tapioca over the chopped pineapple and stir together.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into molds and let it cool.

  2. Serve with cream and sugar.

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 + pineappletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tapioca
Thickens as it cooks and sets the mixture into a firm, jelly-like texture when cooled.
Sugar
Sweetens the dish and helps the tapioca turn clear as it boils.
Pineapple
Provides the main fruit flavour and tartness that balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Boil the tapioca until clear. Tapioca must cook fully until its starch granules swell and turn translucent. Undercooked tapioca stays opaque and chalky, and it will not set properly as it cools.

“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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