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Black Currant Jellv

A jelly made from black and red currants with sugar, boiled until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Black currant and red currant share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 72 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Black Currant Jellv

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the juices

  1. Place the black currants in a glazed earthenware pan without removing them from the stalks.

  2. Cover the pan with a cloth.

  3. Bake the pan in the oven at 400°F (200°C) until the currants are soft.

  4. Rub the softened black currants through a fine cane sieve to extract the juice.

  5. Heat the red currants until nearly boiling.

  6. Strain the red currant juice through a fine cane sieve.

  7. Mix equal quantities of black and red currant juice.

Make the jelly

  1. Add 1 pound of sugar for each pint of the juice mixture.

  2. Boil the mixture in a preserving pan for 15 minutes.

  3. Test the jelly by placing a drop on a cold plate.

  4. If the jelly sets in about a minute, it is ready.

  5. Pour the jelly into pots and glasses.

  6. Cover the pots and glasses once cooled.

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 + red curranttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together72 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Black currant + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Black currants
Provide the main flavour and deep colour of the jelly.
Red currants
Add tartness and natural pectin to help the jelly set.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the jelly and, with the fruit's pectin and acid, helps it set.

The step that matters

Testing the set on a cold plate. Jelly sets because pectin, acid and sugar reach the right concentration when boiled. Boiling too briefly leaves it runny, while overboiling can make it stiff, so the cold plate test shows when it is ready.

Swap the red currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Red currantthe original
  3. Blueberryfits less well
  4. Raspberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against black 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.

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