Why it works: Sugar and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes. The science ↓
Danish Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the tapioca
Put the soaked tapioca in a double boiler with boiling water.
Cook for one hour or until soft and transparent, stirring often.
Sweeten and serve
Add the currant jelly, sugar, and salt, stirring until the jelly is dissolved.
Pour into a glass dish and serve very cold with sugar and cream.
You can substitute ½ cup lemon juice or any acid fruit juice, or 1 cup canned fruit instead of jelly.
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.
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Sugar + curranttop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,256 recipes
Sugar and currant barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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
- Pearl tapioca
- Swells and turns soft and transparent as it cooks, forming the pudding's body.
- Currant jelly
- Adds fruit flavour, tartness and colour, and sweetens the pudding as it dissolves.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and balances the tartness of the jelly.
The step that matters
Cooking the tapioca until soft and transparent. Pearl tapioca must be cooked long enough for its starch granules to fully swell and gelatinise; undercooked pearls stay opaque and chewy. Gentle, frequent stirring in a double boiler prevents scorching and sticking while the starch thickens.
“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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