Skip to main content
Dessert

Gooseberry Pudding

A layered dessert of gooseberries, toasted bread, milk, sugar, and butter, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Stew the gooseberries slowly for 10 minutes.

  2. Cut the bread slices to fit the pudding dish.

  3. Toast the bread slices to a light brown.

  4. Dip each hot slice in milk.

  5. Spread each slice with melted butter.

Assemble

  1. Cover the bottom of the dish with the toasted bread.

  2. Add a layer of gooseberries sprinkled with sugar.

  3. Add a layer of toasted bread.

  4. Add a layer of gooseberries.

  5. Repeat the layers.

Steam

  1. Cover the dish tightly.

  2. Steam the dish in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 25 minutes.

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
Supply the main fruit flavour and tartness that the sugar balances.
Toasted stale bread
Absorbs the milk and butter and forms the soft, layered body of the pudding.
Milk
Moistens the bread so it softens and holds together during steaming.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that offsets the gooseberries' sharp acidity.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and keeps the bread tender.

The step that matters

Cover the dish tightly. Trapping the steam keeps the moisture in, so the bread softens evenly and the pudding cooks through without drying out.

“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.

More gooseberry pudding recipes

Rice 10Baked 9 See all 112 →

You might also like

Bread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipesBrown Bread PuddingBrown Bread Pudding47 recipes