Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓
Currant Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Remove all leaves and imperfect fruit from the currants.
Place currants and sugar in a kettle.
Scald well.
Skim out the currants.
Dry them on plates.
Make the jelly
In a saucepan, combine the strained juice with lemon juice, lemon rinds, cloves, and cinnamon stick.
Add the whites of the eggs and their blanched shells. Beat slightly.
Bring the mixture to a boil.
Simmer gently for 10 minutes.
Skim off any scum.
Strain and set
Prepare a flannel bag by pouring warm water through it.
Strain the jelly until clear.
Stir in the sherry.
Pour into molds.
Refrigerate until set.
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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Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,189 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,950 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,150 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Currant + sherrytop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together393 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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, natural pectin and acidity that give the jelly its body.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the juice set into a firm gel.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and supports gel formation.
- Egg whites
- Coagulate during simmering and trap impurities, clarifying the jelly.
- Sherry
- Adds aromatic depth and a warm, wine-like flavour at the end.
The step that matters
Simmer gently after the egg whites are added. Egg whites must coagulate slowly so they trap sediment in a raft that can be skimmed off. A hard boil breaks the raft apart and leaves the jelly cloudy.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, sherry, lemon, clove, cinnamon, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Orangefits better
- Figfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, sherry, lemon, clove, cinnamon, egg. 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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