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BUFFALO Stir until Tapioca becomes transparent; then stir in one-half cup of molasses, one tablespoon of butter, one-fourth teaspoon of Larkin Table Salt. Pour into a buttered baking dish, and over it pour threefourths of a cup of milk-without stirring, put into oven and bake an hour. Serve warm or cold with cream.
A baked tapioca pudding of the plainest sort, sweetened with molasses rather than sugar. The instructions begin mid-process, so the quantities for the tapioca and its soaking liquid have to be supplied from experience.
- The missing first stepAs printed, the recipe opens at "stir until tapioca becomes transparent" — no amount of tapioca and no cooking liquid are given. Period puddings of this type generally used about half a cup of pearl tapioca soaked and cooked in two to three cups of milk or water, but the text itself does not say, so treat any figure as a reconstruction.
- Which tapioca"Tapioca" in a 1900s American kitchen usually meant pearl or flake tapioca, which needs long soaking before it will swell and clear, though granulated quick-cooking tapioca was also available by then. Quick-cooking (minute) tapioca behaves differently and thickens far faster; it will not tolerate the same soaking and baking without going to paste.
- Transparency is the testThe pearls must lose their white centres before the pudding goes into the oven. Undersoaked tapioca stays chalky and gritty no matter how long it bakes.
- MolassesUse unsulphured cooking molasses, not blackstrap, which is bitter and will dominate a pudding this plain. Half a cup makes a distinctly dark, mildly bitter sweetness rather than a sugary one.
- Larkin Table SaltA house brand of the company that issued this booklet. It was ordinary fine table salt; a quarter teaspoon of any table salt does the same work.
- OvenNo oven heat is given; only 'bake an hour.' For a milk pudding of this kind a moderate oven, roughly 325-350F, is a reasonable modern equivalent. If the surface browns too fast, drop the heat and give it the full hour.
- The milk poured overThe recipe insists the three-quarters cup of milk go on top without stirring, which suggests the intention is a thinner, custard-like layer over the tapioca beneath rather than an evenly mixed pudding.
- YieldAssuming the usual proportions, this fills a 1-quart baking dish and serves four to six with cream.
This comes from a premium cookbook issued by the Larkin Company of Buffalo, New York — the stray "BUFFALO" at the head of the entry is a fragment of the firm's imprint. Larkin began as a soap manufacturer and grew into one of the great American mail-order houses, selling groceries, salt, spices and household goods direct to families and giving away recipe booklets that named Larkin products in the ingredient lists, as this one does with its table salt. The pudding itself is a thrift dessert: tapioca, processed from cassava root and imported cheaply through the late nineteenth century, swelled a small amount of milk and molasses into a full baked dish.