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Dessert

Currant Jam

Currant jam made with currants, sugar, raisins, oranges, and optional raspberry juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,180 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, creamy. The science ↓

Currant Jam

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the jam

  1. Combine currants, sugar, raisins, and oranges in a large pot.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves.

  3. Bring to a boil and cook until the mixture thickens, about 30-40 minutes.

  4. If using, stir in red raspberry juice before removing from heat.

Jar and seal

  1. Pour into sterilized jars and seal.

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. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  2. Orange + red raspberrytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Raisin + red raspberrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Currants
Provide the bulk of the fruit and the tart flavor and pectin that help the jam set.
Sugar
Sweetens the jam and, as it dissolves and concentrates, helps it thicken and preserve.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and body to the fruit mixture.
Oranges
Add acidity and aroma, and their peel adds bitterness that balances the sugar.

The step that matters

Cooking until the mixture thickens. Sugar and fruit pectin set only at the right concentration. Stopping too early leaves a runny jam, while cooking too long can scorch the sugar and dull the flavor.

Swap the red raspberry

The recipe marks red raspberry as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (currant, sugar, raisin, orange):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Red raspberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against currant, sugar, raisin, orange. 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.

More currant jam recipes

Black 54Red 28White 17Raspberry 5Spiced 5Green 4 See all 57 →

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