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Dessert

Gooseberry Sauce

A sweet sauce made by cooking gooseberries with equal parts sugar into a thick syrup.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Pick off the tops and stems from the gooseberries.

  2. Weigh an equal quantity of sugar to the fruit, dividing the sugar into two equal portions.

Make the sauce

  1. Make a syrup with one portion of sugar and heat it.

  2. Add the gooseberries to the syrup and cook until they are transparent.

  3. Remove the gooseberries and make a syrup with the reserved sugar, adding the first syrup.

  4. Let the combined syrup boil until thick and rich, then pour it over the fruit.

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 tart fruit flavour and the body of the sauce.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, boiled into syrup, thickens and enriches the sauce.

The step that matters

Boiling the combined syrup until thick and rich. Sugar syrup thickens as water evaporates and concentrates. Boiling too briefly leaves the sauce thin, while overboiling can make it sticky or caramelised. Watching its texture keeps the sauce pourable and glossy.

“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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