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Tapioca Pudding with Cocoanut

A sweet pudding made from tapioca, coconut, milk, sugar, and eggs, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,648 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Tapioca Pudding with Cocoanut

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the tapioca

  1. Soak the tapioca overnight.

  2. Drain the water in the morning.

Cook the pudding

  1. Bring the milk to a boil.

  2. Add the tapioca.

  3. Cook for 10 minutes.

  4. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together until light.

  5. Add the grated coconut and stir into the tapioca.

  6. Boil for another 10 minutes.

  7. Pour into a pudding dish.

Top and brown

  1. Beat the egg whites.

  2. Add 3 tablespoons of sugar.

  3. Spread on top of the pudding.

  4. Spread a thick layer of coconut on top.

  5. Brown in the oven for 5 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

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. Coconut + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Coconut + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and milk 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
Thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the pudding its body and a tender, slightly chewy set.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and thicken the pudding, while whipped whites add airy structure to the topping.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the tapioca swells in and the custard sets from.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the whipped egg whites hold their structure and brown lightly.
Grated coconut
Adds coconut flavour and fat, and browns on top of the pudding in the oven.

The step that matters

Cooking the tapioca in the milk. Tapioca must be fully hydrated and cooked through, or it stays firm and grainy. Stirring keeps the starch from sticking and scorching on the bottom of the pan while it thickens the milk.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, 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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