White Currant Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Extract the juice
Put the fruit into a preserving pan with ½ cup of water.
Bruise the currants with your hands to extract the stalks.
Stir the fruit on the fire until it begins to simmer.
Pour the mixture into a hair sieve over a large white pan.
Alternatively, use a fruit presser to squeeze out the juice.
Make the jelly
Boil the sugar to the ball degree.
Add the juice.
Stir the jelly occasionally with an untinned copper skimmer.
Remove the scum as it rises.
Boil for about 15 minutes until the jelly reaches the right degree, indicated by the last drops hanging in drapes from the skimmer.
Pot and store
Pour the jelly into pots.
Cover with brandied papers.
Store in a cool, dry place for a couple of days before sealing.
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
What each ingredient does
- Currants (in the method)
- Provide the juice that sets into the jelly and gives its tart flavour.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the jelly and, with the fruit's pectin, helps it set.
The step that matters
Boil until the jelly reaches the right degree. Setting depends on boiling off enough water to concentrate the sugar and pectin. Stop too early and the jelly stays runny; boil too long and it can turn stiff or caramelise. The skimmer drop test shows when it is ready.
“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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