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Dessert

Gooseberry Fool

A dessert made from cooked gooseberries, sugar, cream, and egg yolks, finished with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Gooseberry Fool

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the gooseberries

  1. In a covered stewpan, combine the gooseberries and water over medium heat until the fruit is tender.

  2. Rub the cooked gooseberries through a fine sieve and mix in the sifted sugar. Let it cool.

Make the custard

  1. In another stewpan, combine the cream or milk with cinnamon, lemon peel, sugar, cloves, and coriander seeds. Boil for 10 minutes.

  2. Strain the egg yolks and mix with a little flour and water. Whisk over low heat to prevent curdling until nearly boiling.

  3. Set the pan in cold water and stir the cream for 5 minutes, then let it cool.

Combine and finish

  1. Combine the gooseberry pulp with the cooled cream and add grated nutmeg.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Lemon + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,498 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Cinnamon + coriandertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Clove + coriandertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,221 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 pulp that gives the fool its main flavour and body.
Cream or new milk
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the finished dessert.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they gently set with heat, adding richness.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and balances the gooseberries' natural tartness.
Flour
Helps stabilise the egg custard so it thickens without curdling.

The step that matters

Whisking the egg yolks over low heat. Egg yolks scramble and curdle if they get too hot too quickly. Gentle heat with constant whisking thickens the custard smoothly as it nears simmering.

Swap the coriander

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream, cinnamon, lemon, clove, egg, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, cinnamon, lemon, clove, egg, flour. 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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