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Dessert

Berry Tapioca

Berry Tapioca is a dessert made from berries, water, cinnamon, sugar, instant tapioca, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Berry Tapioca

Ingredients

Directions

Make the berry base

  1. Cook the raspberries or blackberries with water and cinnamon in a pot.

  2. Add sugar and let it boil slowly.

  3. Strain the mixture and let it cool.

Make the tapioca and serve

  1. Reheat the strained mixture and prepare it with instant tapioca according to package instructions.

  2. Pour the tapioca mixture onto a soup plate and drizzle sterilized cream over it.

  3. Serve warm in cold weather.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cinnamon + creamtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,510 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

Raspberries or blackberries
Provide the main fruit flavor and color for the berry base.
Instant tapioca
Thickens the strained berry liquid into a soft, spoonable pudding texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the berry base and balances the tartness of the fruit.
Sterilized cream
Adds richness and a cool, creamy contrast to the warm tapioca.

The step that matters

Prepare the tapioca with instant tapioca according to package instructions. Instant tapioca thickens as it heats and cools, so the amount and heating must match the package directions or the pudding can end up too thin or gluey.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Peppermintfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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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