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 ↓
Curraxt and Raspberry Paste Drops
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Boil the currants and raspberries.
Rub the boiled fruit through a sieve.
Make the paste
In a kettle, combine the fruit puree with the sugar.
Stir over a brisk fire until the mixture reduces enough to show the bottom of the kettle when a spoon is drawn across it.
Drop spoonfuls onto a tin sheet, about the size of silver quarters.
Dry and store
Place the tin sheet on an oven screen with a low fire for 1 hour.
Remove from the tin and store between sheets of paraffin paper in a closed box in a dry place.
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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Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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 tart, concentrated fruit flavour and natural pectin that helps the paste set.
- Raspberries
- Add aroma and a sweet-tart fruit flavour to the paste.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the paste and, once cooked down, helps it hold its shape and dry into drops.
The step that matters
Reducing the fruit and sugar until the bottom shows. Cooking the puree long enough drives off water and concentrates the sugar and pectin. Too little reduction leaves the drops soft and sticky, while overcooking makes them hard and dense.
“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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