Having taken up the challenge of tapioca pudding, a dish I neither liked nor knew much about, I first tried an almond milk version off the back of the box that got an enthusiastic thumbs down. Fine. Abandoning my dairy alternative path, I turned to 101 Cookbooks for a trustworthy baseline method, which I promptly managed to misread and mess up horribly.
On my third try, however, I managed to get the basics right and thus was able to fiddle a bit more creatively. Since one of my objections to tapioca pudding (aside from the whole frog-spawn thing) was its blandness, I noodled about for something that would add the necessary interest. I'd been interested in fiori di Sicilia, a flavor essence that combines orange and vanilla for a while, and this seemed like not too far a jump from plain old vanilla.
Not having any actual fiori di Sicilia on hand, though, I used Korean honey-citron tea. With it's more nuanced, almost mineral-y citrus tang, I thought it would, when mixed with vanilla (bean and extract), produce a reasonable facsimile of fiori di Sicilia.
I tinkered with the salt and sugar levels because the tea is so sweet, and added a bit more vanilla at the end to balance the citron's oomph.
I'm not sure how close it came to the bottled essence itself, but the pudding came out really well, with the vanilla's floral sweetness and the citron's fragrant, slightly astringent bite making for a delicious and novel dessert. —LukePF
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