Name: Tapioca Cup Pudding
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon tapioca; 1 cup whole milk; 1 egg yolk; 1 tablespoon sugar; a pinch of salt

Why it works: Milk and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Tapioca Cup 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 the milk for 2 hours.
Stir in the egg yolk, sugar, and salt.

Bake and serve

Pour the mixture into a cup and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 15 minutes.
Serve with jelly or fresh strawberries if desired.

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.

Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 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: Its starch thickens the milk as it softens and swells during soaking and baking.
Egg yolk: Its proteins set during baking, giving the pudding a creamy, custard-like body.
Whole milk: Forms the liquid base that hydrates the tapioca and keeps the pudding moist.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the egg yolk and milk.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into a cup and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 15 minutes.. Egg yolk proteins set with gentle heat. Too much heat or too long in the oven can curdle or toughen the egg, so the pudding should be checked for a set centre rather than baked until firm.

“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.