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Pineapple Fluff
1 cup diced pineapple
2 tablespoons Minute tapioca
3 tablespoons sugar
½ cup pineapple juice
2 egg whites
1. cup cream
Pinch of salt
Maraschino cherries
Soak the tapioca in the pineapple juice ten minutes, place in a double boiler; add the sugar, salt and cook one-half hour; add the stiffly beaten egg whites and cool until set. Serve with whipped cream and garnish with chopped nut meats or maraschino cherries.
A 1920s tapioca cream, built on canned pineapple and a branded quick-cooking tapioca. The method is sound but the ingredient list runs ahead of the instructions in two places.
- The pineapple is never addedThe diced fruit appears in the list and then disappears from the method. Fold it in after the cooked tapioca has cooled somewhat, along with or just before the egg whites, so the pieces stay distinct rather than breaking down.
- Minute tapiocaThis is quick-cooking (granulated) tapioca, still sold under that name. Do not substitute pearl tapioca measure for measure; large pearls need far longer soaking and give a different texture entirely.
- The half hour is not a mistakeQuick tapioca thickens in a few minutes over direct heat, but a double boiler rarely brings the mixture to a full boil, so the longer, gentler cook is what softens the granules and gives the mixture body. Stir occasionally and stop when it is thick and translucent.
- "1. cup cream"A typographical stray period; read it as one cup of cream, whipped, for serving rather than folded into the base.
- Raw egg whitesThe beaten whites go into a base that is hot but never boiling, so they are only partly set by residual heat. Use pasteurized whites if the dish is for children, the elderly, or anyone pregnant.
- Fresh versus canned pineappleCanned pineapple and its juice are what the book assumes. Fresh pineapple contains active bromelain, which will not harm tapioca but does turn dairy bitter over time, so eat it the same day if you use fresh fruit.
- SweetnessThree tablespoons of sugar is modest. Canned pineapple of the period was often packed in heavy syrup, and with juice-packed fruit you may want a little more.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no yield; expect roughly four small glasses or coupes. Chill until fully set, then top with the whipped cream and cherries at the table.
Pineapple Fluff belongs to a whole family of interwar "fluffs," "whips" and "sponges" that stretched a little fruit with beaten egg white and a starch thickener into something that looked like a restaurant dessert. Two industrial products made it possible: granulated quick-cooking tapioca, sold in American groceries under the Minute name since the 1890s, and canned Hawaiian pineapple, which by the 1920s was cheap, reliably sweet, and came with usable juice in the tin. Maraschino cherries did the same work of instant respectability. Recipes like this one are made ahead, hold in the icebox, and can be assembled from a shelf rather than a market trip.