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Dessert

Gooseberry Pool

A sweet dessert made from gooseberries, sugar, milk, eggs, and cream, cooked and served chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 Pool

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gooseberries

  1. Pick and wipe the gooseberries.

  2. Put the gooseberries in a saucepan with the moist sugar.

  3. Cook until tender.

  4. Mash the gooseberries.

  5. Press the mash through a coarse sieve.

Make the custard

  1. Warm the milk.

  2. Add the beaten egg yolks and cream.

  3. Stir until thick but do not boil.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool.

Combine and serve

  1. Mix in more sugar with the gooseberries.

  2. Stir into the milk.

  3. Pour onto a fancy dish to serve.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Green gooseberries
Provide the main fruit flavour and tartness, and form the pudding's body once mashed.
Moist sugar
Sweetens the gooseberries and helps them soften into a tender mash while cooking.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that the fruit is stirred into.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk into a custard as they set with gentle heat.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the custard a smoother, softer texture.

The step that matters

Stir until thick but do not boil. Egg yolks thicken as they warm, but if the custard gets too hot they curdle and turn grainy. Gentle heat and constant stirring keep it smooth.

“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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