Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Baked Gooseberry Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the fruit
Place the gooseberries in a jar and submerge them in boiling water until soft enough to pulp.
Pass the softened gooseberries through a coarse sieve.
Make the filling
Combine the gooseberry pulp with the whisked eggs, butter, breadcrumbs, and sugar in a bowl, and mix well.
Assemble and bake
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Lay a border of puff pastry around the edge of a pie dish.
Pour the mixture into the pie dish and bake for about 40 minutes.
Serve
Sprinkle sifted sugar over the top before serving.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Gooseberries
- Provide the main fruit flavour and tart acidity that balances the sugar.
- Eggs
- Set as they bake, giving the pudding its structure and custard-like body.
- Breadcrumbs
- Absorb the fruit pulp and liquid, thickening the mixture and giving it body.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender texture.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness to offset the tartness of the gooseberries.
The step that matters
Baking the filling. The eggs must set through without overbaking. Too much heat makes them curdle and dry, while too little leaves the centre loose and wet.
“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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