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Dessert

Black or Red Currant Jam

Jam made from currants and sugar, boiled and preserved in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes. The science ↓

Black or Red Currant Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Gather currants on a fine day and remove them from the stalks.

  2. Place currants in a preserving pan with the sugar broken into small pieces.

Cook

  1. Gradually bring the mixture to a boil, then let it simmer.

  2. Remove any scum that rises and stir the jam constantly.

Pot and seal

  1. Once done, pour the jam into pots and cover with brandy paper or paper steeped in starch, then tie them down closely.

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. 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

Currants
Provide the fruit flavour, tartness and pectin that help the jam set.
Sugar
Sweetens the jam and helps it thicken and keep as it cooks down.

The step that matters

Stirring and skimming while the jam simmers. Sugar sitting on the bottom of a pan can scorch and taint the jam, so constant stirring keeps it from catching. Skimming removes scum that would otherwise cloud the jam and affect its texture.

“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 jam recipes

Black 54Red 28White 17Raspberry 5Spiced 5Green 4 See all 57 →

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