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Dessert

Souffle Au Tapioca

A light, lemon-flavored tapioca souffle made with milk, butter, eggs, and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Souffle Au Tapioca

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the tapioca base

  1. In a saucepan, combine tapioca, milk, and butter, and bring to a boil.

  2. Add the lemon rind tied in a bunch and cook until the tapioca is thick and well done.

  3. Remove the lemon rind and quickly stir in the yolks of the eggs.

  4. Cook for another minute to thicken slightly, then let cool.

Bake and serve

  1. Whip the egg whites until stiff and gently fold them into the tapioca mixture.

  2. Pour into a baking dish and bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until set.

  3. Serve warm.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tapioca
Swells in hot milk and thickens the mixture into a creamy, set base.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard and whites, whipped, give the soufflé its lift and airy structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid that the tapioca thickens, adding richness and moisture.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavour and a tender texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold air only while stiff; overmixing or deflating them when folding loses the air that makes the soufflé rise, so fold gently and briefly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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