How simple. How sweet. How retro. How perfectly wonderful for any night of the year, but for me...
Tapioca Pudding=Summertime. I have memories of making this with my mom. On summer nights when we wanted something delicious without heating the house up with the oven, we turned to our old friend, Tapioca. Now, tapioca is underrated, in my opinion. It hides in the back of the pantry, waiting for someone to whip it up. I always have some on hand because I also use it for my pies as a thickener. I love the way it puffs up and the tiny little pearls sparkle in the pie. But, as a pudding its versatile and creamy and usually served chilled.
Well, when mom and I made it, it rarely made it to the fridge. I remember after my mom took it off the stove, poured it into her large pyrex mixing bowl and sprinkled it with cinnamon, she would grab two big spoons from the drawer and her and I would dig in. It was so hot that we often burned our tongues and giggled as we fanned our mouths (as if that would help). And even if the night was hot, it didn't matter because we just could not wait.
I make this for my family now. Grayson prefers his cold, with cinnamon and whip cream on top...so decadent, right? And Emerson likes hers cold, without cinnamon or whip cream. I like it any way I can get it.
I love how easy this is to make. I follow the regular Tapioca recipe on the back of the box. I use 1% milk, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. The only thing I do different is I add a half of a TBSP more of tapioca (I like my pudding a little thicker) So the measurement on the recipe calls for 3 TBSP so I do 3 1/2 TBSP. I patiently stand over the stove, stirring with my whisk, watching the pudding thicken up. Then I spoon it into individual mismatched vintage dishes (because I think everything tastes better in a special dish), sprinkle half of them with cinnamon, and stick them in the fridge to cool.
P.S. mine never makes it to the fridge...my mouth is burned, but my tummy is happy.
Until we meet again,
Lo
