Name: Gooseberry Tart
Ingredients: 1 pint gooseberries; ½ lb short crust pastry; ¼ lb moist sugar

Gooseberry Tart

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

1 pint gooseberries
½ lb short crust pastry
¼ lb moist sugar

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Using scissors, cut off the tops and tails of the gooseberries.
Place the gooseberries in a deep pie dish, piling them high in the center.
Sprinkle the sugar over the gooseberries.
Line the edge of the dish with short crust pastry and cover with another layer of pastry.
Decorate the edges of the tart.

Bake and serve

Bake for about 30 minutes.
Before serving, sprinkle with fine sifted sugar.

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

What each ingredient does

Gooseberries: Provide the tart's main fruit filling, with their natural tartness balanced by the sugar.
Moist sugar: Sweetens the fruit and draws out juices, adding moisture to the filling.
Short crust pastry: Forms the crisp, rich case and top crust that hold the filling in place.

“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.