Recipe for Gesso used in gold leaf gilding
Most of the recipes I've seen online are for acrylic gesso to prime canvases before painting. I'm not sure they would work the same for your purposes.

However, I did locate one recipe specifically for gilding from an SCA member's website:


  
  1 part sugar water (the sticky part that allows the gold to adhere)
  4 parts liquitex acrylic gesso (adds the bulk to your gesso)
  5 parts liquitex gloss varnish medium (keeps the gesso together,    hardening with a smooth finish)
  Color to suit (red for work with gold and blue for silver)
  


It goes on to give instructions for the gilding process as well, including how to use the gesso:


  Lay the Gesso – Start your area of gesso in the middle of your design
  and pull it outwards towards the edges*.  It is ideal to let this
  gesso dry for 6-8 hours. DO NOT to get air bubbles in your gesso when
  you stir. Gently fold your gesso to remix it.  If you do have air
  bubbles in your laid gesso there will be pits in the surface after it
  dries.  To remove the bubbles from gesso that you’ve just laid take a
  pin and gently pop them before it begins to dry.  It has been my
  experience that the key to beautiful raised gilding is an even surface
  tension to the "bubble" of gesso that you lay down.  To create an even
  surface tension to your gesso you should first drop a large puddle of
  the gesso into the space you will be gilding, then using your brush
  pull the edges of the puddle outwards to the fill your designed space.
  This gesso is not designed for flat gilding and your design should be
  filled in with puddles of the gesso that create small domes on your
  page.


(source: The Scribal Art of Elizabth de Nevell)