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Dessert

Apple and Tapioca Pudding

A steamed apple pudding with tapioca, cloves, and buttered sugar glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,774 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Apple and Tapioca Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and core enough apples to fill a pudding dish without crowding.

  2. Pour ½ cup cold water over the apples, cover, and steam in the oven until tender.

  3. Soak 1 cup tapioca in enough water to cover it for several hours, then drain.

Assemble and bake

  1. Fill the centers of the apples with sugar and stick a clove in each.

  2. Pour the tapioca over and between the apples.

  3. Bake for 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Serve with cream and sugar or a sauce made by creaming 2 tablespoons butter with 1 cup powdered sugar and flavoring with lemon juice.

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. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Tapioca
Swells as it soaks and cooks, thickening the pudding and giving it a soft, jelly-like texture.
Firm apples
Soften during baking and hold their shape, adding fruit body and tartness to the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and pudding and helps balance the tartness of the fruit.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the optional sauce, giving it a smooth, creamy mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Soak the tapioca fully before baking. Dry tapioca pearls need time to hydrate; if they are not soaked long enough and drained well, they stay firm or chalky and the pudding will not thicken evenly.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, butter, lemon. 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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