Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Gooseberry Fool
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the gooseberries
Top and tail the gooseberries, then place them in a saucepan with the water.
Cover and heat slowly until the gooseberries are soft but not broken.
Strain the water from the gooseberries and mash them into a fine pulp, adding enough sugar to sweeten.
Finish and serve
Let the mixture cool, then mix in the cream.
Serve in a large bowl or dish.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, 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 pulp that forms the body of the fool.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the tart fruit and balances its acidity.
- Cream
- Adds fat for richness and a smooth, light texture when mixed into the pulp.
The step that matters
Heat the gooseberries slowly. Gentle heat softens the fruit while keeping it intact. Rapid boiling bursts the skins and releases too much liquid, leaving a thin, watery pulp that will not hold its body when the cream is added.
“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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