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Tapioca Pudding

A sweet pudding made with soaked tapioca, grated apples, lemon zest, sugar, butter, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Tapioca Pudding

Why it works: Apple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Tapioca Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a pot, combine soaked tapioca, grated apples, grated lemon, sugar, and butter.

  2. Place on the stove and bring to a boil.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten eggs.

Serve

  1. Serve with whipped 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.

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

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

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

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

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Tapioca
Starch that swells and thickens the pudding as it cooks.
Eggs
Set and enrich the pudding, adding body and richness.
Apples
Add moisture, soft texture, and mild fruity flavor.
Lemon
Adds bright acidity and aroma that balance the sweetness.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps round out its flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stir in the eggs off the heat. Adding beaten eggs to a boiling mixture can scramble them. Removing the pot from heat first lowers the temperature so the eggs blend in smoothly and thicken the pudding gently instead of curdling.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Applethe original

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