As soon as I saw them, I knew I had to have them.

The little green globes sat in their tiny, cute baskets at the Farmer's Market with a hand-lettered sign in front of them: "Gooseberries."

Gooseberries. I had never seen a gooseberry in my life before, much less tasted one. So what that they were $2.50 for a pint? Gooseberries! Surely a once in a lifetime opportunity. The next stall over presented another new item: red currants. I bought those too. What can I say? I walk on the wild side, buying unknown fruits like nobody's business.




At home, I presented my findings to the girls, but they were less than impressed. "Too sour," was their verdict on the gooseberries. "Yuck," was all Beth had to say about the currants.

And I must say, I kind of agreed with her on the currants. Not a super-tasty flavor, and kind of large-ish seeds for their small size.

The gooseberries, however, I thought were pretty good. They looked like a miniature green grape, but with a nearly-translucent skin. Their flavor was a tangy sweet-tart. I could see how a 4-year-old might call them sour, but I didn't think they were any more tart than a Granny Smith apple. Definitely not in the realm of rhubarb.

But not necessarily going to be my new favorite snack, either. The rest of the pint of gooseberries sat in my refrigerator for a few days...until I had a barbecue to go to today...and I decided to make some kind of a dessert out of them.

I tried my copy of Nigella Lawson's "How to be a Domestic Goddess" first--gooseberries just seem like a British kind of thing to me, so I thought a British cook might have something for them--and sure enough, Nigella had several gooseberry recipes. The one for Gooseberry Crumble sounded perfect...except that she called for a pound and a half of gooseberries, and I had just barely half a pound. Also the recipe called for elderflower cordial. Because, you know, I frequently have elderflower cordial just hanging around in my pantry. Good-bye, Nigella.

The I turned to the Internets. This Sour Cream Gooseberry Pie at Allrecipes was very highly rated. And it called for just the right amount of gooseberries. But, I don't know. A cooked sour cream and gooseberry filling? Inside a pie crust? I don't know why that weirded me out. You cook cheesecake, and I love cheesecake. Berry cheesecake, yum yum yum. But a baked sour-cream-and-gooseberry combo just didn't sound good to me. Good-bye, Internets.

In the end, I adapted a recipe from my old friend Pioneer Woman. Seriously, I don't think I've ever made a recipe from her site that wasn't yummy. And they almost always call for ingredients that I already have on hand in the cupboard. I had made her blackberry cobbler recipe before and liked it a lot, and I had a feeling it would probably translate itself well to any berry recipe.

So I gave it a go. Threw gooseberries in there instead of blackberries. And then took the results to the barbecue, just going on faith that it was going to be edible. Like I said, I live dangerously.

Here it is, ready to go in the oven. I forgot to take a picture of the finished product, so this is the closest you're going to get.



It smelled so delicious while it was cooking. If we had Smell-o-vision or something like that available on Blogger, I'd send you a link to the scent of it. It smelled good.

Now, you see that little bowl behind the gooseberry cobbler? With the reject mushy gooseberries and a bunch of little stems in it? That bowl of tiny stems is the reason I'm probably not going to be a frequent gooseberry baker. Every single tiny gooseberry had a little bit of stem still attached to either side, which I had to pull off before I could bake it. It was kind of a pain, and it took forever. Like, 10 whole minutes. It might not have been strictly necessary. Nigella, in her recipe, said "If you can be bothered, trim the gooseberries." Which leads me to believe that it's OK not to be bothered to trim the gooseberries. But I was taking it to this barbecue and the stems just didn't look that appealing. I didn't want little crunchy bits of stem in my cobbler..so I was bothered to trim the gooseberries.

But, final verdict: just plain flavor-wise, not ease-of-trimming-gooseberries-wise, I liked it very much. The cobbler dough was sweet, crisp on the outside and a little soft on the inside. The gooseberries still had their tangy flavor. One friend compared it to a strawberry-rhubarb pie--it had that hint of tartness too it. The kids still told me it was too sour. But this is what the plate looked like at the end of the evening:




Must not have been too bad.

Here is the recipe, just in case you happen to have gooseberries at a farmer's market near you and you want to give it a whirl:

Gooseberry Cobbler

About two cups of gooseberries (I had somewhat less than two cups)
1/2 cup of butter
1 1/4 cup of sugar (divided)
1 cup self-rising flour OR 1 cup all-purpose flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp baking soda (that's what I used, since I had no self-rising flour)
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup milk

Melt butter in a microwavable dish. Pour 1 cup of the sugar, and the flour (plus other dry ingredients, if you have no self-rising flour) into a mixing bowl and stir. Whisk in milk and vanilla, and mix well. Pour in melted butter and mix all together well.

Pour batter into a buttered baking dish (I used a 9-inch glass pie plate, but I think anything about that size would work). Sprinkle gooseberries over the top of the batter, distributing evenly. Sprinkle 1/4 cup sugar over the top.

Bake in a 350 oven for 1 hour, or until golden and bubbly (I baked it a little less than an hour--about 55 minutes I think). Can sprinkle an additional tablespoon or two of sugar over the cobbler 10 minutes before it's done (I did this and it was good).