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Maple Tapioca Pudding
1/3 cup minute tapioca 3 cups scalded milk 2 egg yolks, well beaten 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon shortening 1/3 cup maple sugar 2 egg whites, beaten stiff Cook tapioca in milk in a double boiler until clear. Add well beaten egg yolks, salt, shortening, powdered maple sugar. Mix all thoroughly, then stir in the stiffly beaten whites of the eggs, and bake. If preferred, the whites may be reserved, sweetened and spread over the baked pudding as a meringue, then lightly browned. Serves 6.
A period custard-tapioca pudding that assumes a cook who knows what "bake" means without being told. The gaps are all in the oven stage.
- Oven, unstatedNo temperature or time is given. A milk-and-egg pudding of this kind is usually baked in a moderate oven, in the range of 325-350F, for roughly 40-50 minutes, until the centre barely trembles; standing the dish in a pan of hot water is a common safeguard. Higher heat risks curdling the custard and weeping liquid.
- Minute tapiocaThis is the quick-cooking granulated product, not pearl tapioca. Modern boxes of quick tapioca behave the same way; pearl tapioca needs soaking and much longer cooking and cannot be swapped in measure for measure.
- "Until clear"The hinge of the dish. In the double boiler the granules go from chalky white to translucent, usually 10-15 minutes with occasional stirring. Undercooked tapioca stays gritty no matter how long the pudding bakes.
- Tempering the yolksThe milk is scalded and the tapioca hot, so add a ladle of it to the beaten yolks first and return the mixture to the pan. Dropped in cold, the yolks will scramble in threads.
- ShorteningIn American recipes of this type this means butter or a solid vegetable fat. A tablespoon of butter is the better choice here for flavour with maple.
- Maple sugarMaple sugar sold in hard cakes or blocks needs grating or grinding to the 'powdered' state called for, or it will sit in lumps. Maple syrup is not a direct substitute; if you use it, the extra liquid will loosen the pudding.
- The two finishesFolding the whites in gives a light, souffle-like set that sinks a little on cooling. Held back for meringue, sweeten the whites with a tablespoon or two of sugar and return the pudding to the oven only long enough to colour the top lightly, as the recipe directs, once the pudding has set.
- ServingSix portions, best warm or at room temperature. Refrigerated overnight the tapioca firms considerably.
Tapioca reaches the American pantry as cassava starch imported from Brazil and the West Indies, and by the end of the nineteenth century it was sold in a pre-cooked granulated form as 'minute' tapioca, which is what made puddings like this one a weeknight possibility rather than an afternoon project. Pairing it with maple sugar was common where maple was the cheap local sweetener long before it became a luxury, and sugar in cake form kept better than syrup in a household without reliable refrigeration. This is a planner's dessert, built from milk, eggs and a shelf staple, with the whites doing double duty as either leavening or topping depending on how much trouble the cook felt like taking.