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 ↓
Tapioca Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Soak the tapioca in 1 cup of hot water for 15 minutes.
Make the pudding
Boil the milk, then stir in the soaked tapioca and cook for 10 minutes, stirring constantly.
Remove from heat and stir in sugar, butter, and flavoring.
Beat the eggs and mix them in until well combined.
Bake
Pour the mixture into a pudding dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 in liquid and thickens the pudding as it cooks.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the tapioca cooks and thickens in.
- Eggs
- Set during baking to give the pudding a custard-like body.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richer flavor and a softer, smoother mouthfeel.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the flavor.
The step that matters
Cooking the tapioca in the milk. Stirring constantly keeps the starch from settling and scorching on the bottom of the pan. Tapioca must be fully cooked in the liquid to swell and thicken properly, so the pudding does not turn out grainy or gummy.
“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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