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Dessert

Gooseberry Pudding

A baked gooseberry pudding made with eggs, butter, bread crumbs, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fruit

  1. Cut off the tops and tails of the gooseberries.

  2. Place the gooseberries in boiling water until soft.

  3. Beat the softened gooseberries through a coarse sieve to make pulp.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine the pulp with the well-whisked eggs, butter, bread crumbs, and sugar, and mix the ingredients well.

  2. Lay a border of puff pastry around the edge of a pie dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into the dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 40 minutes.

  2. Sprinkle sifted sugar on top and serve.

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 flavour and the pulp that forms the body of the pudding.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set as it bakes, giving the pudding structure.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and thicken the pulp so it holds together when baked.
Sugar
Sweetens the tart gooseberry pulp and balances its acidity.

The step that matters

Bake the pudding until just set. Egg proteins set as they heat, so the pudding turns firm and custard-like at the right point. Overbaking squeezes out moisture and makes the texture grainy and dry.

“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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