Why it works: Sugar and currant 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 ↓
Currant Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Make the jelly
Boil the currant juice hard for 15 minutes.
Heat the sugar in the oven.
Add the heated sugar to the juice and boil hard for 5 minutes.
Fill and seal
Pour into molds, sprinkle with finely-pulverized sugar to prevent mold, and seal either hot or 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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Sugar + curranttop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,256 recipes
Sugar and currant 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
- Sugar
- Sweetens the jelly and helps it set firm as the mixture thickens and concentrates.
- Currant juice
- Provides the fruit flavor, tartness, and the pectin and acid that let the jelly gel.
The step that matters
Boil hard after adding the sugar. The sugar must dissolve fully and the mixture must reach a hard boil so that water evaporates and the pectin and acid can set the jelly. Too little boiling leaves it runny and prone to spoiling.
“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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