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Dessert

Gooseberry Pudding

A steamed pudding made with gooseberries, stale bread, milk, sugar, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 gooseberries and toast

  1. Stew the gooseberries slowly for 10 minutes.

  2. Cut the slices of bread to fit the dish and toast them until light brown.

Layer and bake

  1. Dip each piece of toast in hot milk and spread with melted butter.

  2. Cover the bottom of the dish with a layer of toast.

  3. Add a layer of gooseberries and sprinkle thickly with sugar.

  4. Repeat layers of toast and gooseberries until the dish is full.

  5. Cover closely and steam in the oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

  6. Turn out onto a hot dish and pour over a rich pudding sauce.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 flavor and moisture that softens the bread and forms the filling.
Bread
Forms the absorbent layers that soak up milk and juice to set into a soft, custard-like body.
Milk
Softens the toast and adds moisture so the layers become tender when steamed.
Sugar
Sweetens the tart gooseberries and balances their acidity.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and keeps the toast tender.

The step that matters

Steaming covered in the oven. Covering the dish traps steam so the bread softens evenly through the layers. Uncovered, the top dries and the pudding can turn tough or leave dry pockets.

“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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