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Gooseberry Tart
Pick off the tops and stalks of the gooseberries. Put them into a pie-dish, pile them high in the centre, strew a little sugar over them, and add a tablespoonful of water. Line the edge of the dish with a good crust, put on the cover, and bake in a brisk oven. Strew a little powdered sugar over before sending the tart to table. A little cream or custard is a great improvement to this dish. An ample allowance of sugar is required for gooseberries, especially when they are partially ripe. The smell of gooseberry tart, we may observe, by the way, exactly resembles that of the true forget-me-not. 2 1/2 pints of gooseberries will make a pie for four or five persons. Time to bake, three-quarters of an hour.
A plain English fruit tart of the old school: raw fruit, sugar, a pastry lid and nothing else. The only real decisions are how much sugar and how hot the oven.
- Sugar is the hingeGreen or half-ripe gooseberries are aggressively acid, and the recipe's "ample allowance" means roughly 3/4 to 1 cup of sugar for 2 1/2 pints of fruit. Underdo it and the tart is inedible; taste a raw berry and judge from there.
- Brisk ovenA brisk oven is usually reckoned at roughly 400-450F. Start there for the first 15 minutes to set and colour the pastry, then drop to 375F for the remainder so the fruit cooks through without the crust scorching.
- Three-quarters of an hourForty-five minutes is right for a deep dish of raw fruit under a lid. The tart is done when juice bubbles at the vent, not when the top merely looks brown.
- "Line the edge of the dish"This is a Victorian deep-dish fruit pie: a strip of pastry pressed round the rim of the dish, then the lid laid over and sealed to it. There is no bottom crust.
- Quantities2 1/2 pints of gooseberries is somewhere around 1 3/4 to 2 lb, filling a 1 1/2 to 2 quart pie dish and serving four or five. Pile the fruit high in the centre as directed so the lid does not collapse as the berries shrink.
- SteamCut a vent in the lid before baking. Without one the trapped steam lifts the pastry off the rim and the juice runs out at the seam.
- Topping and finishingThe powdered sugar goes on after baking, once the tart has stopped steaming, or it dissolves. Pouring cream or a thin pouring custard is the traditional accompaniment rather than whipped cream.