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Dessert

Pineapple Tapioca

A chilled dessert of tapioca pearls cooked with sugar, pineapple, and served with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Pineapple Tapioca

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the tapioca

  1. In a rice boiler, combine tapioca and water.

  2. Add sugar and boil until soft and clear.

  3. Stir in grated pineapple and cook for 3 more minutes.

Chill and serve

  1. Pour into molds and refrigerate until cold.

  2. Serve 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Sugar + pineappletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

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

  3. Pineapple + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,574 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Minute tapioca
Starch that thickens as it cooks and sets into a soft, jelly-like body when chilled.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the pineapple.
Grated pineapple
Adds fruity acidity and flavour, and moisture to the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil until soft and clear. Tapioca starch must be fully gelatinised to turn translucent and set properly. Undercooked pearls stay chalky and firm, while the bottom can stick and scorch if not stirred.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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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