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Dessert

Gooseberry

A chilled gooseberry dessert made with pulp, cream, liqueur syrup or brandy, sweetened to taste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Syrup and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Gooseberry

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Sweeten the gooseberry pulp to taste.

  2. Blend in the cream until smooth.

  3. Add food coloring if desired.

  4. Stir in the liqueur syrup or brandy.

  5. Fill a mold with the mixture.

Set and serve

  1. Place the mold in an ice cave until firm enough to 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. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Cream + syruptop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Gooseberry + creamtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together35 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Gooseberry + sugartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together131 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Gooseberry pulp
Provides the tart fruit base and most of the bulk of the pudding.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the pudding a smooth, soft texture.
Liqueur syrup or brandy
Adds aroma and flavor, and its alcohol keeps the pudding from freezing rock-hard.

The step that matters

Blending the cream until smooth. Cream must be fully incorporated into the acidic pulp so the mixture stays smooth rather than curdling or separating. Thorough blending gives an even, creamy set when chilled.

Swap the gooseberry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, syrup, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Gooseberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, syrup, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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