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Dessert

Black Currant Jam

A jam made from black currants and sugar, boiled and cooled in small glasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Black currant and sugar work together. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 393 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Black Currant Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick the currants from the stalks and bruise them in a bowl with a potato masher.

  2. In a preserving kettle, combine the bruised currants and sugar.

Cook and jar

  1. Boil the mixture for 45 minutes, stirring and skimming constantly to prevent sticking and burning.

  2. Once done, pour the jam into small glasses.

  3. As soon as the jam is cold, cover it with brandy paper and tie or paste paper over the edges.

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. Black currant + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Black currants
Provide the fruit flavour, natural pectin and acidity that give the jam its body and tang.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the jam and, as it thickens with boiling, helps set it and preserve it.

The step that matters

Stirring and skimming during the 45-minute boil. Sugar-rich fruit mixtures scorch easily on the hot base of the kettle, and constant stirring keeps them from sticking and burning. Skimming removes foam so the jam stays clear and fresh-tasting.

“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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