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Dessert

Gooseberry Custard

A custard made from boiled gooseberries, eggs, sugar, and rose or orange flower water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Gooseberry Custard

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the gooseberries until tender.

  2. Rub the gooseberries through a fine sieve.

  3. In a bowl, beat the gooseberry pulp with the egg yolks and egg whites.

  4. Add sugar to taste and the rose or orange flower water. Mix thoroughly.

  5. Heat over low heat, stirring continuously until it thickens, but do not let it boil.

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 + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Sugar + rosetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,584 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Egg + rosetop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,840 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Gooseberries
Provide the main fruit pulp, giving the custard its tart flavour and body.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set with gentle heat, giving it a smooth, rich texture.
Egg whites
Add structure and help the custard set lightly when gently heated.

The step that matters

Heating the custard gently. Egg proteins set and can curdle or scramble if the mixture gets too hot, so cooking over low heat while stirring keeps it smooth and thickened 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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