Name: Gooseberry Tart
Ingredients: 3 pints of gooseberries; ½ pound of short crust pastry; ½ pound of moist sugar

Gooseberry Tart

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

3 pints of gooseberries
½ pound of short crust pastry
½ pound of moist sugar

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

Cut off the tops and tails of the gooseberries.
Place them in a deep pie dish, piling the fruit high in the center.
Sprinkle the sugar over the gooseberries.

Assemble and bake

Line the edge of the dish with short crust pastry, cover with a lid, and decorate the edges.
Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 45 minutes.
Before serving, dust with caster sugar.

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

What each ingredient does

Gooseberries: Provide the main fruit filling and the tart, sharp flavour of the dish.
Moist sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the gooseberries' tartness and helps draw out their juices.
Short crust pastry: Forms the rich, crisp crust that encloses and holds the fruit filling.

“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.