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Dessert

Gooseberry Cream

A gelatin dessert made from boiled gooseberries, sugar, lemon, milk, and isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Gooseberry Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gooseberries

  1. Remove the stalks and tops from the gooseberries. Wash the gooseberries. Drain the gooseberries.

  2. Boil the gooseberries in water until soft.

  3. Press the boiled gooseberries through a sieve.

Make the pudding

  1. For every pint of gooseberry juice, add a pound of sugar. Add the rind and juice of half a lemon.

  2. Boil the mixture for 15 to 20 minutes.

  3. Let it cool.

  4. Dissolve the isinglass or gelatine in the milk.

  5. Mix the dissolved isinglass with the cooled gooseberry mixture.

  6. Pour the mixture into a mold.

  7. Refrigerate until firm.

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. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 main fruit flavour and tartness, and the pulp that forms the pudding body.
Sugar
Sweetens the tart fruit and helps give the set pudding its body.
Isinglass or gelatine
Sets the strained fruit mixture into a firm, sliceable pudding as it chills.
Milk
Carries the dissolved setting agent and adds richness and a softer, creamier texture.
Lemon
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the sweetness of the gooseberries.

The step that matters

Dissolve the isinglass or gelatine in the milk. Setting agents must be fully dissolved before mixing, or lumps and uneven pockets of gel will form. Mixing it into a mixture that is cooled, not hot, also helps it set evenly rather than being weakened by heat.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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