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Currants for Tarts

A syrup made from currants and sugar for use in tarts.

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 ↓

Currants for Tarts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Gather currants on a fine day and select the best ones.

  2. Press and strain the juice from the rejected currants.

Make the syrup

  1. Combine the currant juice and sugar in a saucepan to make a syrup.

  2. Allow the syrup to cool, then add the currants.

Boil and store

  1. Boil until the mixture is beautifully clear.

  2. Transfer to pots or glass jars and cover with brandy paper and a wetted bladder.

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

Currants
Supply the main fruit flavour and the body of the preserve.
Refined sugar
Sweetens the preserve and, at high concentration, helps it keep and set.

The step that matters

Boil until clear. Boiling concentrates the sugar and fruit so the mixture sets and keeps. Stopping too early leaves it runny and prone to spoiling, while boiling too long can darken, scorch, or make it stiff.

“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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