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Dessert

Currant Jelly, Without Boiling

A jelly made from red and white currants, raspberries, sugar, and water, cooked until it sets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Red currant and white currant share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Currant Jelly, Without Boiling

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Bruise all the fruit in a preserving pan with the water.

  2. Stir the mixture over heat until it boils.

  3. Extract the juice using a fruit presser.

Make the jelly

  1. Pour the juice into a copper preserving pan.

  2. Add the bruised sugar and stir until it dissolves.

  3. Place the pan over a low charcoal fire.

  4. Stir the jelly slowly without frothing for 25 to 30 minutes.

  5. Test for doneness by dropping a little on a cold plate; it should set firm.

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. Red currant + white curranttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Red currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,156 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. White currant + sugartop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together59 recipes

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Red currants
Their natural pectin and acid help the juice gel into a firm jelly.
Raspberries
Add flavour and aroma to the jelly and contribute to its colour.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly and helps it set by binding water and pectin.
White currants
Contribute mild acidity and fruit flavour to the jelly.

The step that matters

Stirring the jelly without frothing. Vigorous stirring incorporates air and creates foam that can cloud the jelly and leave scum. Slow stirring keeps the juice clear while it reduces and reaches the setting point.

Swap the white currant

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

  1. Raspberryfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. White currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against red currant, 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 currant jelly recipes

Red 93Black 55Sauce 50White 38French 11Tartlets 7 See all 365 →

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