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Dessert

Gooseberry-Pudding

A sweet pudding made from green gooseberries, butter, sugar, biscuits, eggs, ratafia, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,127 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Gooseberry-Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gooseberries

  1. Scald the gooseberries and drain them in a sieve.

  2. When cold, rub the gooseberries through a sieve with the back of a spoon.

Make and bake the pudding

  1. Add butter, sugar, grated biscuits, eggs, ratafia, and brandy; mix well.

  2. Pour the mixture into a dish, with or without a crust.

  3. For patties, line pans with rich paste and fill them with the mixture.

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. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Butter + biscuittop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,009 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Sugar + biscuittop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,874 recipes

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Gooseberries
Provide the tart fruit flavour and the bulk of the pudding's body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the set mixture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the gooseberries' tartness.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set as it cooks.
Naples biscuits
Add body and absorb liquid, thickening the mixture.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour depth to the pudding.

The step that matters

Rub the gooseberries through a sieve. Cooling the scalded fruit before sieving keeps it manageable, and pressing it through removes skins and seeds so the filling is smooth rather than grainy.

“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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