As a child, there were few things more comforting when I was under the weather than a bowl of homemade tapioca pudding. However, I have continued to adore this love-it-or-hate-it dish, even when I’m not recovering from something!
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Before the advent of the pudding cup—my generation’s highest shelf stable food achievement—there was always homemade pudding. Granted, a lot of these “homemade” treats were often produced my simply adding milk to a pre-packaged product and stirring (with or without heat), but there was always something comforting about my mom taking out a box of Minute Tapioca, following the same instructions on the side which she always followed, and having warm, homemade tapioca pudding about 15 minutes later.
I, too, always used Minute Tapioca as I grew older, not questioning its grocery shelf dominance, and never having had anything else, other than subpar instant or premade types. After moving to Japan, however, all of that changed.
Upon getting my first serious head & chest cold in Japan, I asked my mother to include a box of Minute Tapioca in a care package, and have tried to keep it on hand as much as I can. As that’s not always possible, however, it got me to thinking that Minute Tapioca’s very name implies the existence of a product which takes longer to make, and I set out trying to crack the code of tapioca pudding made with the tiny cassava pearls which are relatively easy to find in Japan.
Note: the tapioca pearls must soak for at least one hour at the start of this recipe, so be prepared for that prep time!!
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I have occasionally had some tapioca desserts as part of a set meal when I went out to dinner in Japan, usually much thinner than the classic “American” tapioca pudding as some people know it, and often made with coconut milk and mixed fruit.
Don’t get me wrong: as a tapioca fiend, discovering new types and flavors of an old favorite is always delightful to me! I’m also one of the few people in Tokyo who has never complained about the opening of a new bubble tea establishment—especial ones w/ Thai tea!—and always mourned the loss of a shop I liked. I just always found myself coming back to my version of the real pudding deal.
Understanding, of course, that the tapioca used in pudding and the tapioca used for boba are two different beasts, I was still buoyed by finding the occasional dessert made w/ mini tapioca, as that meant I could find a way to reproduce what my heart wanted. And the heart wants what the heart…okay, fine, I’ll get on with it!
I’ll be honest: I began the quest to make this recipe using mostly the same ingredients and amounts on the side of my Minute Tapioca box, and adjusted soaking time and cooking styles from there, after swapping the type of tapioca of course. First, I tried to soak and / or cook the tapioca in water, as many different recipes for not-quite-tapioca-pudding called for, assuming that was a prerequisite.
It was pretty meh.
A while back, however, in a bout of either desperation, laziness, or both, I absentmindedly dumped the tapioca right into my egg and sugar base before cooking the goods. When I realized my error, I winged the entire pot into the refrigerator overnight, hoping to salvage the operation with a 24-hour soak…
And it worked! Well, mostly. Still foolishly following the directions on the side of my trusty box of quick tapioca, I got it close to what I wanted, but never with the—I swear to gawds I’m saying this with a completely straight face—translucent, blobby loveliness which is the earmark of the pudding I was going for.
Finally, I decided to use my culinary background to my benefit (finally!?!), and I tried cooking the tapioca in the methods of different custards (which is what most pudding basically is), and I got closer than ever. The best results came from using an overnight soak for the tapioca in a portion of the milk, cooking it very slowly to allow the tapioca time to bloom and cook fully, and then tempering in the eggs closer to the end of the process. It worked! w00t です!!
Somewhere along the line, my extensive culinary training & not negligible laziness combined to the recipe I use now, and which I pass on to you today…unless you’re one of those assholes who can’t stand tapioca pudding in any form, and if so, why did you even read this far??
All joking aside, I’m going to note a least a couple of times in this post that, while I managed to greatly reduce the soaking time, this is still a slow cooking recipe by many standards—the tapioca must be soaked for at least an hour—and the cooking process is bordering on the tedious. Exciting, right??
I just find some things worth the effort. ❤︎
Tapioca Pudding:
- 75 grams of sugar
- 1 egg + 1 egg yolk (~75 grams)
- 40 grams of small pearl tapioca
- ¼ tsp. salt
- 600 ml. milk (any kind is okay!)
- 1 vanilla bean (optional, but yummy!)
0. You want to use what’s called mini tapioca or small pearl tapioca for this recipe…not the big boba! And also not instant, if you somehow stumbled across that in the Japans!
1. Start by stirring together the 75 grams of sugar with one whole egg and one egg yolk (together, my egg products came to about 75 grams, but the exact weight ain’t too important) in a heavy-bottomed sauce pan, and mixing it well.
You can throw away the extra egg white if you don’t care, or you can save it for something else. I like to keep a screw-top plastic container in my freezer, plopping in errant egg whites as I collect them…when the container is nearly full, I defrost the egg whites overnight in the refrigerator, and then make an angel food cake or meringue cookies or something which relies heavily on egg whites.
2. Stir in the 40 grams of small pearl tapioca and the ¼ tsp. of salt, and mix until combined.
3. Slowly stir in the 600 ml. of milk, mixing well after every 200 ml. or so, being careful not to splash all over the place.
4. For the final step of preparation, split one vanilla bean lengthwise, and scrape all of the vanilla bean guts* into the pot. Mix well. If you want to use vanilla extract instead, wait and save that for the end of the cooking process.
5. NOW SET THE POT ASIDE FOR AT LEAST ONE HOUR!! You can put it into the fridge if you have the space or if your brain tells you that you need to…but I usually just set it on my back burner, out of the way until I remember / have time to cook it an hour or three later. As long as it’s at least an hour, any extra time is lagniappe.
6. Set the pot over your lowest heat, and stir slowly but constantly as it heats up. This is why I have this recipe tagged as slow cooking : not only do you have to wait at least one hour to soak the tapioca pearls, but for the best texture of the finished pudding, you want to heat it up very, very slowly.
7. As the pudding starts to get hot and steamy, you’re going to really really (really) want to watch and stir it constantly, scraping the bottom of the pan with either a flat whisk or a classic wooden spoon often. If you cook the pudding too fast, the eggs can scramble or the tapioca pearls will have a weird texture in the center, so do not hurry this step.
8. The pudding is done when you see that it has gotten quite thick, and the pearls of tapioca have become completely translucent. If you’re not scared of sampling very hot foods, you can try a little bit whenever you think it might be ready, but if the tapiocas are still al dente, keep! cooking! slowly!
9. When the pudding is finished, remove it from the heat immediately—stir in the vanilla extract if you’re using that instead of a vanilla bean—and bam です.
Now you can put it into smaller containers if you so desire, removing the vanilla bean if you added it, but I prefer to just plop a lid onto the pan until it’s cool to the touch—this also allows the tapioca pearls to absorb more milk—and ladle it into containers after I’ve…um…”sampled it” extensively. Depending upon how much of the pudding you yourself need to sample, this recipe makes four to six servings.
While I find the simplest to be the best, variations abound! You can replace some or all of the milk with coconut milk, and serve it with toasted coconut on top; you can add a handful of chopped, rich chocolate once the pudding has finished cooking, but before it cools completely for a yummy chocolate version; and it can easily be made vegan by using your favorite not-milk, leaving out the eggs, and simply cooking it a bit longer.
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My favorite variation by far, however, is to replace the milk with coconut milk, and add pandan flavor at the end (the amount you use depends upon the kind you have) for the bright green, buttery / vanilla~y / otherworldly flavor than pandan is known for.
Go forth and make pudding, friends! And try to be kind to one another, but don’t put up with people’s shit either. Being a good person means standing up for what’s right; not being walked all over in the name of “kindness”. ❤︎
As always, please let me know if you have any questions at all and let me know in the comments section below if you made this recipe. You don’t even need to log in or anything to comment! And I especially like likes!
See you next time! Mwah!!
(*If you want to make vanilla sugar, set aside the vanilla bean pods for that…if you don’t want to use the pods for something else, you can chuck them into the pan, too, for a really over-the-top vanilla flavor.)
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