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Dessert

Red-currant Jelly

A jelly made from red currants, sugar, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Red currant and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,156 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Red-currant Jelly

Oven, in the book's wordsA slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Strip the currants from their stalks and place them in a porcelain-lined or bell-metal kettle with a little water to prevent burning.

  2. Gently mash the currants with a wooden mallet without breaking the seeds until the juice is released.

  3. Transfer the mashed currants to a flannel or coarse linen bag and let the juice drip into a bowl.

Make the jelly

  1. Measure the juice and for each pint, add ¾ pound of sugar.

  2. Heat the mixture on a brisk fire, stirring just enough to blend the sugar with the juice.

  3. Once it boils, cook for 20 minutes to achieve firm jelly.

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Red currants
Their natural pectin and acidity let the juice set into a firm, tart jelly.
White sugar
Sweetens the juice and helps it set into a firm, spreadable gel.

The step that matters

Stirring while heating the sugar and juice. Stirring only enough to blend keeps the seeds unbroken and the mixture clear, while sugar dissolves fully before boiling. Over-stirring or scorching can cloud the jelly or give it a burnt taste.

“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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