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Dessert

Gooseberry Biscuits

A biscuit made from gooseberry pulp and loaf sugar, dried and cut into shapes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Gooseberry Biscuits

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pulp

  1. Gather the gooseberries and place them in a jar.

  2. Boil the gooseberries in a kettle of water until soft.

  3. Rub the softened gooseberries through a sieve to make pulp.

  4. For every pound of pulp, add a pound of loaf sugar.

  5. Stir the mixture over heat until the sugar dissolves.

Dry and store

  1. Pour the mixture into shallow dishes to dry in the sun or a cool oven.

  2. Once it begins to candy, cut it into desired shapes.

  3. Turn the pieces every day until they are dry and hard.

  4. Store in tin boxes in a dry place.

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 fruit pulp that forms the flavour and body of the biscuits.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the pulp and, as it cooks and cools, candies to help the pieces set firm.

The step that matters

Stirring the pulp and sugar over heat until the sugar dissolves. Sugar must fully dissolve into the pulp before drying; undissolved grains can stay gritty and crystallise unevenly. Keeping the heat gentle avoids scorching the fruit.

“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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