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Dessert

Currant Drops

A sweet drop made from currant juice and sugar, cooked gently and dropped onto paper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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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 Drops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Use currant juice instead of water to moisten the sugar.

Make the mixture

  1. Put the mixture in a pan and heat it while stirring constantly; do not let it boil.

  2. Mix in a little more sugar and let it warm with the rest for a moment.

Shape

  1. Drop the mixture onto paper using a smooth stick.

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 + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Currant juice
Moistens the sugar and adds fruit flavour and acidity.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and forms the set mass as the mixture cools.

The step that matters

Do not let the mixture boil. Stirring constantly and keeping the heat gentle stops the sugar from scorching or crystallising. Letting it boil can overconcentrate the sugar, changing the texture of the drops and making them harder or grainy when they cool.

“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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