Name: Gooseberry Pudding
Ingredients: 2 cups green gooseberries; ¾ cup butter; ½ cup sugar biscuits, crushed; 4 eggs; ¼ cup powdered sugar; Pastry for border

Why it works: Butter and biscuit are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,009 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

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 filling

Stew the green gooseberries until they can be pulped through a sieve.
In a bowl, mix the pulped gooseberries with butter, crushed sugar biscuits, beaten eggs, and powdered sugar.

Bake

Pour the mixture into a deep dish lined with pastry.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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.

Butter + biscuittop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,009 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Sugar + biscuittop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,874 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked 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

Green gooseberries: Provide the tart fruit base and bulk of the filling once pulped.
Eggs: Bind the filling and help it set firm when baked.
Butter: Adds richness and a tender, moist texture to the filling.
Sugar biscuits: Crushed biscuits add body and a light sweetness to the filling.
Powdered sugar: Sweetens the filling and blends smoothly into the pulp.