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Dessert

Tapioca and Grape Juice Pudding

A pudding made with tapioca, grape juice, sugar, lemon juice, and folded egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Grape and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,412 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Tapioca and Grape Juice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the tapioca in the water for 15 minutes.

Cook the pudding

  1. In a double boiler, combine the soaked tapioca and sugar.

  2. When hot, add the grape juice and cook until the tapioca is transparent.

  3. Stir in the lemon juice and salt.

Finish and serve

  1. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Serve hot or cold 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.

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. Grape + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,412 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

  5. Grape + sugartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,490 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Thickens the juice as it cooks and turns the pudding clear and set.
Egg whites
Whipped foam that lightens the texture of the pudding when folded in.
Grape juice
Provides the main liquid and fruity flavour of the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the tart flavour of the lemon and grape.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Stiffly beaten egg whites hold air that gives the pudding its light texture. Vigorous stirring knocks out that air, leaving a dense, flat result.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Grapethe original

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