Skip to main content
Dessert

Spiced Gooseberries or Currants

A sweet preserve made from gooseberries or currants, sugar, raisins, orange juice, orange rind, cinnamon, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spiced Gooseberries or Currants

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine all ingredients in a large pot.

  2. Boil for 20 minutes, or until the mixture jellies.

  3. Serve with fowl or meats.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Orange + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Gooseberries (in the method)
Provide the fruit base and pectin that help the preserves set into a jelly.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserves and helps them thicken and set as they cook.
Raisins
Add body and concentrated sweetness to the preserves.
Oranges
Add acidity and aroma from the juice and rind.

The step that matters

Boil until the mixture jellies. Boiling drives off water and concentrates sugar and fruit pectin until the mixture sets. Stopping too early leaves a runny preserve, while cooking too long can make it stiff and dark.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Quincefits about as well
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raisin, cinnamon, clove. 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.

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipesOrange SherbetOrange Sherbet73 recipes