{creamy and chewy all at once, this was excellent served warm or chilled, slurp}

I think I’ve expressed my love for puddings here before. Cold, creamy, and mildly sweet, I’ll take just about any flavor you give me. Pistachio, chocolate, butterscotch, right this way please. But my favorite has always been tapioca. Those little pearls of chewy gel throughout the custard, just something about them, are welcome here any day of the week.

Despite my affection for tapioca pudding, I’ve never thought to make it for myself. I think I figured the little morsels arrived in my individual pudding cups by way of magic. Certainly no earthly ingredient could achieve such heavenly results. No way man! But here they are and this is what you do:

1/2 c tapioca pearls
2 1/2 c milk
1/2 c sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs, separated
1 fresh vanilla bean *

In a bowl, soak tapioca in 2 c of room temp water overnight. Drain water.

In a double boiler, heat milk just until no longer cold. Split vanilla bean lengthwise, scrape out the sticky paste and throw it all into the milk. Add salt and tapioca. Continue to heat until small bubbles appear at sides of pan. Cover, turn heat to very low and cook for one hour. Make sure the milk mixture does not simmer or boil.

Remove the vanilla bean and any large pieces that remain. Separate egg whites from yolks. Beat egg yolks and sugar together until light yellow in color. Add a little of the hot mixture to the egg yolks and blend thoroughly.

Then add the egg yolk mixture to the hot milk mixture, stirring constantly. Place the double boiler over medium heat and cook until tapioca mixture is very thick, from 15 – 30 minutes.

Beat egg whites until stiff. Slowly fold the hot tapioca mixture into the egg whites. Stir in vanilla and serve warm or chilled with whipped cream. This recipe is from a packet of Reese Tapioca Pearls.

See the vanilla bean specs running throughout? I love those, it reminds me of Breyers vanilla bean ice cream which was my favorite flavor forever untill lately I can’t seem to find it. Sniff.

* You can use 1 teaspoon vanilla extract if you don’t have a vanilla bean.

{tags fresh vanilla beans tapioca pearls recipe}