Name: Gooseberry Tart
Ingredients: 1 pint of gooseberries; 4 lb. of short crust pastry; ½ lb. of moist sugar

Gooseberry Tart

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

1 pint of gooseberries
4 lb. of short crust pastry
½ lb. of moist sugar

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Remove the tops and tails from the gooseberries using scissors.
Place the gooseberries in a deep pie dish, piling them high in the center.
Sprinkle the sugar over the gooseberries.

Assemble and bake

Line the edge of the dish with short crust pastry and cover the tart.
Decorate the edges of the tart.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 30 minutes.
Before serving, dust the tart with fine‑sifted sugar.

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's main fruit filling, supplying sharp acidity and most of its moisture.
Short crust pastry: Forms the crisp, buttery shell that holds the filling and browns in the oven.
Moist sugar: Sweetens the sharp fruit and helps draw out juice that becomes syrup as it cooks.

“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.