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Dessert

Gooseberry Pudding, Baked

A baked dessert made from gooseberries, breadcrumbs, butter, sugar, eggs, and short‑crust pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and egg 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 ↓

Gooseberry Pudding, Baked

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the purée

  1. Remove the tops and tails from the gooseberries.

  2. Cook the gooseberries in a jar placed in a saucepan of boiling water until tender.

  3. Rub the cooked gooseberries through a fine sieve to make a purée.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a bowl, combine the gooseberry purée, breadcrumbs, butter, sugar, and beaten eggs.

  2. Line a pie dish with short‑crust pastry and pour in the mixture.

  3. Bake at 400 °F (200 °C) for about 40 minutes or until set.

Serve

  1. Dredge with caster sugar and serve hot.

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. Butter + eggtop 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

Gooseberries
Provide the tart fruit flavour and, once puréed, the moist body of the pudding.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb the fruit purée and juices, giving the filling body so it sets rather than runs.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and coagulate on baking, helping the pudding set firm.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to a tender texture and rounded flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the tart gooseberries and balances their acidity.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs set as their proteins coagulate with heat. Pulling the pudding too early leaves a loose, wet centre, while overbaking can make the eggs curdle and turn the filling dry and rubbery.

“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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