Skip to main content
Dessert

Tapioca Cream

A sweet pudding made from tapioca, milk, eggs, and sugar, topped with browned meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Tapioca Cream

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 Cream

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

  1. Soak the tapioca in hot water until soft.

  2. Scald the milk in a double boiler.

Make the pudding

  1. Add the soaked tapioca to the hot milk and cook until transparent.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks, sugar, and salt together.

  3. Add the egg mixture to the tapioca and milk, cooking until it thickens like boiled custard.

  4. Once cool, stir in the vanilla.

Top and brown

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites to a stiff froth, then gradually add 3 tablespoons of sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue on top of the pudding and brown in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

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. Milk + sugartop 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 and turns clear as it cooks, giving the pudding its thick, slightly chewy body.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard as they cook, while whites whip into the meringue topping.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the tapioca cooks in and the custard sets from.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and, dissolved into the whites, stabilises the meringue.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg yolk mixture into the tapioca. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently but can curdle or scramble if they get too hot too fast. Keep the heat moderate and stir constantly so the custard thickens smoothly.

“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.

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes