Why it works: Currant and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes. The science ↓
Currant Jelly Without Boiling the Sugar
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Wash the currants and let them drain thoroughly, preferably overnight.
Remove all leaves and crush the fruit in a large bowl, about a quart at a time.
Place a strainer over a stone crock and pour in the crushed currants.
Stir and squeeze the currants to extract the juice.
Measure the juice; for every pint, use one pound of granulated sugar.
Cook and set
Boil the juice in a preserving kettle for twenty minutes, skimming off the scum.
Add the sugar to the boiling juice, reserving some to match the scum removed.
Keep the kettle hot but do not let it boil; stir gently until the sugar dissolves.
Pour the mixture into a large pitcher and fill jelly glasses.
Cover the glasses immediately but do not move them until the jelly is set.
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.
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Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,256 recipes
Currant and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Currants
- Provide the juice that, with pectin and acid, gives the jelly its body and flavour.
- Granulated sugar
- Sweetens the juice and helps the jelly set firm and hold its shape.
The step that matters
Keep the kettle hot but do not let it boil after adding the sugar. Boiling after the sugar is added can break down the fruit's pectin and invert the sugar, so the jelly may fail to set properly or turn grainy. Gently dissolving the sugar protects the gel.
“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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