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Dessert

Black Currant Jelly

A preserve made from black and red currants mixed with sugar.

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 Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the juice

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

  2. Cover the pan with a cloth and bake in the oven at 300°F (150°C) until soft.

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

  4. Heat the red currants until nearly boiling, then strain to obtain the juice.

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

Make and set 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; it should set in about a minute.

  4. Pour the jelly into pots and glasses, and cover once cool.

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 the pectin-rich juice that helps the jelly set.
Red currants
Add extra juice and acidity that supports setting and brightens the flavour.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the jelly and, when boiled, helps it thicken and set.

The step that matters

Boiling the juice and sugar. The mixture must reach a full, rapid boil so that enough water evaporates and the sugar and pectin can gel. Underboiling leaves a runny jelly, while overboiling can darken and scorch the flavour. The cold-plate test shows whether 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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