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Dessert

Currant Dumplings

Currant dumplings are sweet fruit dumplings made with red currants, raspberries, sugar, ground rice, and served with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Currant Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fruit mixture

  1. Gently stew the red currants until the juice flows freely.

  2. Add the raspberries just before the currants are done cooking.

  3. Strain the mixture and sweeten to taste.

  4. Add ground rice to thicken the mixture, similar to making blanc-mange.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into a mold and refrigerate until cold.

  2. Serve with cream.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Red currant + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together56 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Rice + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Red currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,156 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Sugar + ricetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,744 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

Red currants
Provide the main fruit body and tart juice that forms the base of the dish.
Raspberries
Add extra fruit flavor and aroma to the currant juice.
Ground rice
Thickens the strained juice so it can set firm when cold.

The step that matters

Add ground rice to thicken the mixture. Ground rice must be stirred in so it hydrates and thickens evenly; if added too quickly or unevenly, lumps form and the mixture sets unevenly. Like blanc-mange, the starch gelatinizes when heated, which is what makes the mold hold its shape once cold.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, rice, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, rice, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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