Name: Gooseberry Charlotte
Ingredients: Gooseberry cream; Linger biscuits or sponge cake (or Genoise); Ice

Why it works: Gooseberry and biscuit share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Gooseberry Charlotte

Ingredients

Gooseberry cream
Linger biscuits or sponge cake (or Genoise)
Ice

Directions

Line a charlotte mold with biscuits or slices of sponge cake, cutting them to fit the bottom and sides carefully.
Prepare the gooseberry cream as directed.
When the cream is about to set, pour it into the prepared mold.
Set the mold on ice until firm, about 2 hours.

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.

Gooseberry + biscuittop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together12 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Cream + biscuittop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,235 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Gooseberry + creamtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together35 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).