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Dessert

Berry or Currant Jam

A jam made from berries or currants boiled with sugar.

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 ↓

Berry or Currant Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Put berries or currants into a preserving kettle.

Cook the jam

  1. Boil for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring often and skimming off any scum.

  2. Add sugar in the proportion of 1 pound sugar to 1 pound fruit.

  3. Boil for 30 minutes longer, stirring continually.

Jar

  1. Pour into small jars or jelly glasses.

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

Berries or currants
Provide the fruit, pectin and flavor that form the jam's body and taste.
Sugar
Sweetens the jam and helps it thicken and keep its set as it cooks.

The step that matters

Boil for 30 minutes longer, stirring continually. Sugar and fruit must cook long enough to reach the set point, while constant stirring prevents scorching on the bottom of the kettle.

“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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