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Dessert

Tapioca Pudding

A sweet pudding made from soaked tapioca, milk, eggs, and sugar, finished with vanilla and topped with whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Tapioca Pudding

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Tapioca Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tapioca

  1. Soak the tapioca overnight in enough water to cover it.

  2. In the morning, heat the milk until it is scalding.

  3. Add the soaked tapioca to the milk and boil until it becomes transparent.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks with 2 tablespoons of sugar.

  2. Add the beaten yolks to the mixture and boil for 3 minutes.

  3. Add vanilla for flavor.

  4. Pour the mixture into a dish and let it cool.

Top and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks with the remaining tablespoon of sugar.

  2. Spread the beaten egg whites over the pudding and brown slightly, or cover with sweetened whipped cream.

  3. Serve very cold.

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.

  1. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 during soaking and boiling, thickening the milk into a pudding with a soft, translucent texture.
Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the custard when heated, while beaten whites form a light topping.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the tapioca cooks in and the yolks enrich.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the custard and to the beaten egg white topping.

The step that matters

Boiling the yolks into the mixture. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but if the mixture boils too hard or too long it can curdle or scramble. Keep the heat controlled while the yolks cook for the stated 3 minutes, stirring constantly.

“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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