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Dessert

Gooseberry Pudding

A baked pudding made with gooseberry pulp, eggs, butter, breadcrumbs, and sugar, topped with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Gooseberry Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pulp

  1. Place gooseberries in a jar and cover with boiling water. Boil until soft enough to pulp.

  2. Beat the gooseberries through a coarse sieve to make pulp.

Make the pudding

  1. In a bowl, combine 1 pint of gooseberry pulp, whisked eggs, butter, bread crumbs, and sugar. Mix well.

  2. Roll out puff pastry and lay it around the edge of a pie dish.

  3. Pour the pudding mixture into the dish and bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 40 minutes.

  4. Sprinkle sifted sugar over the top before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Gooseberries
Provide the tart fruit base and bulk of the pudding once pulped.
Eggs
Set the pulp into a soft, custard-like texture as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel to the pudding.
Bread crumbs
Soak up the pulp and help thicken the mixture into a spoonable body.

The step that matters

Pulping the gooseberries. Boiling until fully soft and pushing them through a sieve creates a smooth pulp. Under-cooked or unstrained fruit leaves lumps and skins that disrupt the even, set texture of the pudding.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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