Name: Tapioca Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup tapioca; 1 quart water; 4 apples, pared and cored; 1 tablespoon sugar; a pinch of cinnamon or nutmeg; ¼ teaspoon salt

Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Tapioca Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Soak the tapioca in water for 2 hours on the back of the stove.
Butter a pudding dish and line the bottom with the apples.
Season the soaked tapioca with sugar, cinnamon or nutmeg, and salt.

Bake and serve

Pour the tapioca mixture over the apples.
Bake until the apples are thoroughly done.
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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,598 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon 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: Swells in water and thickens into the pudding's soft, gel-like body.
Apples: Soften during baking and provide the fruit base beneath the tapioca.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and balances the mild, starchy flavour of the tapioca.