Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Gooseberry Fool
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Wash and stem the gooseberries.
Cook the gooseberries with sugar in a saucepan over medium heat until soft.
Mash the mixture and strain to remove skins and seeds.
Assemble and serve
Whip the heavy cream until soft peaks form.
Fold the gooseberry puree into the whipped cream.
Serve chilled.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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 puree that gives the fool its body.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the gooseberries and softens them as they cook.
- Heavy cream
- Whipped into peaks, it gives the fool its light, airy texture and richness.
The step that matters
Fold the gooseberry puree into the whipped cream. Folding gently keeps the air trapped in the whipped cream. Stirring vigorously deflates it, leaving a dense, heavy fool instead of a light one.
“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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