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Dessert

Gooseberry Charlotte

A chilled dessert of gooseberries, cream, gelatin, and biscuits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Gooseberry Charlotte

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Decorate a plain mold with fruits and set in jelly.

  2. Line the sides of the mold with biscuits.

Make the gooseberry cream

  1. Trim the gooseberries and cook them with water until soft.

  2. Sweeten the gooseberries well.

  3. Soak the gelatine in water, then pour off the excess water.

  4. Add the gelatine to the fruit, stir until dissolved, then rub through a sieve and let cool.

  5. Whisk the cream until stiff, then add the cooled fruit mixture and color it a pale green.

Set and serve

  1. When it begins to set, turn it into the prepared mold.

  2. Once firm, dip the mold in warm water and turn out.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Cream + biscuittop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Sugar + biscuittop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Cream + winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Wine + biscuittop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together268 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Whipped to stiffness, it gives the charlotte its light, airy body.
Gooseberries
Cooked to a pulp, they supply the tart fruit flavor and body of the filling.
Gelatine
Dissolved and set, it firms the fruit mixture so the charlotte holds its shape when turned out.
Sugar
Sweetens the tart gooseberries and balances their acidity.
Savoy finger biscuits
Lining the mold, they form a sponge-like shell that holds the filling together.

The step that matters

Add the cooled fruit mixture to the cream. If the fruit mixture is still warm or the cream is not stiff, the cream deflates and the gelatine may set unevenly. Cooling the fruit and whisking the cream first keeps the mousse light and lets it set evenly.

“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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