Why it works: Butter and egg 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 ↓
Gooseberry Pudding, Baked
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
Cut off the tops and tails of the gooseberries.
Cook the gooseberries until tender in a jar placed in a saucepan with boiling water.
Rub the cooked gooseberries through a fine sieve to make a puree.
Make the filling
In a bowl, combine the gooseberry puree with breadcrumbs, butter, sugar, and beaten eggs.
Bake
Prepare a pie dish lined with short crust pastry.
Pour the mixture into the pie dish and bake for about 40 minutes at 350°F (175°C).
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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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Sugar + eggtop 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, once puréed, the body of the pudding.
- Breadcrumbs
- Absorb the fruit purée and help give the pudding a soft, set texture.
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and help it set as it bakes.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, softening the texture and carrying flavour.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the tart gooseberries; amount adjustable to taste.
The step that matters
Rub the cooked gooseberries through a fine sieve. Pushing the fruit through a fine sieve removes skins and seeds, leaving a smooth purée. Skipping or rushing this leaves a coarse, lumpy filling that sets unevenly in the pudding.
“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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