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Dessert

Rich Gooseberry Pie or Tart

A pastry dish filled with fresh gooseberries and sugar, topped with puff pastry and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Rich Gooseberry Pie or Tart

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Grease a tart pan with butter.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line the pan with puff pastry.

  2. Add the gooseberries and sprinkle with sugar; do not add water.

  3. Cover with puff pastry brushed with egg white and dust with fine sugar.

  4. Bake until golden brown.

Serve

  1. After baking, cut open the top to add prepared cream before serving.

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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. 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

Puff pastry
Forms the flaky crust that encloses the fruit and bakes golden and crisp.
Gooseberries
Provide the tart fruit filling that gives the pie its main flavor and moisture.
Sugar
Sweetens the gooseberries and helps balance their natural tartness.
Egg white
Brushed on the top pastry to help it brown and give a glossy finish.

The step that matters

Do not add water to the gooseberries. Gooseberries release their own juice as they bake. Extra water would make the filling runny and can leave the pastry soggy underneath.

“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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