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Tapioca Pudding
Cover one cup pearl tapioca with boiling water. Cook in boiling water until transparent. Add three tablespoons sugar, the juice and grated rind of one lemon. Serve cold with sugar and cream.
Apple Tapioca No. 1 cup pearl tapioca 8 apples 4 cups boiling water ½ cup sugar teaspoon salt grated rind and juice of one lemon Cook the tapioca in boiling water until transparent; add one half teaspoon salt and lemon rind.
Core and pare apples, arrange in baking dish, fill cavities with sugar and lemon juice, cover with tapioca, and bake until apples are tender, adding one teaspoon butter before taking from oven.
Apple Tapioca No. 2 Use rule for Apple Tapioca No. 1, arranging tapioca and apples cut in slices, in layers.
Three related puddings built on the same base: pearl tapioca cooked in water until clear, sharpened with lemon. The 1907 kitchen had a coarser pearl tapioca than most shops now carry, and that is the main thing to adjust for.
- Soak the pearls firstLarge pearl tapioca of this period was generally covered with water and left to swell before cooking, and skipping that step tends to leave chalky centres. The recipe's first line, "cover one cup pearl tapioca with boiling water," may well be that soak rather than the cooking, though the text does not say so outright.
- Not the same as minute tapiocaPearl tapioca is whole beaded cassava starch, cooked until each bead is glassy with no white dot at the core. Quick-cooking or instant tapioca is pre-gelatinised and dissolves into the liquid; substituting it one for one gives a thick paste rather than distinct pearls. If you use instant, reduce the quantity substantially — roughly half.
- Water and consistencyFour cups of boiling water to one cup of pearls is right for the apple versions, where the apples release more juice as they bake. For the plain lemon pudding, use the same ratio and expect a loose pudding that firms considerably as it cools.
- Cook it gentlyTapioca sticks and scorches easily on a direct flame. A double boiler, or the lowest possible heat with frequent stirring, keeps the bottom from catching. Twenty to forty minutes is usual depending on pearl size.
- OvenNo temperature is given. Bake at about 350F for 45 minutes to an hour, until a knife slips easily into the apples. The tapioca layer will set and take a little colour on top.
- Choose a firm appleEight apples for a baking dish means small to medium fruit. A variety that holds its shape when baked, such as Braeburn or Northern Spy, suits the whole-apple version; softer sauce apples collapse and muddle the layers.
- SaltThe ingredient list says "teaspoon salt" and the method says one half teaspoon. Half a teaspoon is the sensible reading for a sweet pudding at this scale.
- YieldThe apple versions serve six to eight. Only the plain lemon pudding is directed to be served cold, with "sugar and cream" — meaning plain unwhipped cream poured over at the table.
Tapioca is the starch washed out of cassava root, and by the time this book appeared it had been a fixture of American and British nursery and invalid cookery for the better part of a century, prized as a bland, digestible starch that stretched milk and eggs. The pearl form was rolled and dried in the manufacturing process, and cooks commonly judged doneness by eye: the bead loses its opaque core and goes clear. Apple tapioca of this kind belongs to a large family of turn-of-the-century fruit-and-starch puddings, cheap and undemanding, that fill the dessert chapters of household manuals published by food companies. Lowney's was a Boston chocolate firm, and books like this one were issued to put the company's name in the kitchen; the desserts section accordingly runs well beyond chocolate, covering the whole range of plain puddings a household cook was expected to know.