Skip to main content
Dessert

Strawberry Jam with Seeds

Jam made from strawberries, currant juice, and sugar, boiled until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Strawberry and currant work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 195 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Strawberry Jam with Seeds

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the jam

  1. Boil the sugar until it reaches the pearl stage.

  2. Add the picked fruit and currant juice.

  3. Stir on the fire for 20 minutes of sharp boiling.

  4. Test the jam for doneness in the usual way.

Pot the jam

  1. Pour the jam into pots.

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. Strawberry + curranttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together195 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Strawberry + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,060 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. 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

Strawberries (in the method)
Provide the main fruit flavour and body of the jam.
Currant juice
Adds acidity and pectin, helping the jam set.
Sugar
Sweetens the jam and, with boiling, helps it thicken and keep.

The step that matters

Stir on the fire for 20 minutes of sharp boiling. A sharp boil drives off water so the sugar and fruit pectin concentrate enough to set. Boiling too gently leaves the jam runny, while overcooking can scorch it or make it stiff, so the doneness test matters.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (strawberry, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pineapplefits better
  3. Bananafits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against strawberry, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

More strawberry jam recipes

Cake 8 See all 161 →

You might also like

Strawberry Ice CreamStrawberry Ice Cream122 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesStrawberry SherbetStrawberry Sherbet48 recipesCurrant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipes