Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Gooseberry Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pastry
In a bowl, combine flour and salt, then add the chopped suet.
Pour in the cold water and mix to form a stiff paste.
Take three‑quarters of the paste and line a greased basin.
Fill and boil
Place the gooseberries in the basin, sprinkle with sugar, and add 2 tablespoons of water.
Roll out the remaining paste and cover the top of the basin, pressing the edges together.
Cover with a floured cloth and place in a saucepan of boiling water.
Boil for 2.5 hours, ensuring the pudding is covered with water throughout.
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.
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the suet pastry that encloses the fruit.
- Suet
- Adds fat that makes the pastry rich and tender as it steams.
- Gooseberries
- Provide the tart fruit filling that softens and releases juice during steaming.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the tart gooseberries and balances their acidity.
The step that matters
Keep the pudding covered with boiling water. If the water level drops below the basin, the exposed pastry dries and cooks unevenly. Steady, full coverage keeps the steam gentle and the crust moist during the long boil.
“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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