Skip to main content
Dessert

Black Currant Marmalade

A preserve made from black currants and sugar, boiled until firm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pulp

  1. Strip the currants from the stalks.

  2. Bruise the currants in a preserving pan.

  3. Stew the currants gently until tender, about 10 to 15 minutes.

  4. Pour off about three parts of the juice for jelly.

  5. Rub the remaining currants through a sieve.

  6. Weigh the pulp.

Make the marmalade

  1. Boil the pulp rapidly for 15 to 20 minutes.

  2. For each pound of pulp, stir in 9 ounces of finely rolled sugar until dissolved.

  3. Boil the marmalade quickly for 10 minutes, stirring often.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into small pans.

  2. Let cool until firm; it should cut into slices.

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 pulp that forms the body and tart flavour of the marmalade.
White sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and, with boiling, helps it thicken and set.

The step that matters

Boil the marmalade quickly after adding the sugar. Sugar must dissolve fully before a brisk boil, and the rapid boil concentrates the mixture so it reaches a set. A weak boil can leave the marmalade runny.

“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.

You might also like

Red Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesCurrant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipesCurrant SherbetCurrant Sherbet9 recipesCurrant and Raspberry IceCurrant and Raspberry Ice7 recipes