Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓
Currant Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Pass the currants through a sieve and place them in a pot over heat until they begin to boil.
Strain the mixture through a flannel bag to extract the juice.
Make the jelly
Measure the juice and prepare an equal amount of syrup, boiling it until it reaches a crack stage.
Add the juice to the syrup and boil until it forms a web on a skimmer.
Remove from heat and let it sit until the scum settles, then skim it off.
Pot and cover
Pour the jelly into pots and cover with paper steeped in brandy when cold.
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.
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Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,057 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Syrup + brandytop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together561 recipes
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Currant + syruptop 29% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together329 recipes
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Currants
- Provide the fruit juice that sets into the jelly, with natural pectin and acidity.
- Syrup
- Adds sweetness and body, and helps the jelly set firm when boiled to the right stage.
The step that matters
Boiling the juice with the syrup until it forms a web. Boiling drives off water and concentrates sugar and pectin. Under-boiling leaves the jelly runny and it will not set; over-boiling can make it tough or caramelised. The web test on a skimmer shows when the set point is reached.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (syrup, brandy):
- Vanillafits better
- Apricotfits better
- Pearfits about as well
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against syrup, brandy. 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.
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