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 ↓
Currant Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Wash and drain the currants.
Place them in a preserving kettle and heat until they burst.
Transfer the currants to a bag and let the juice run out without squeezing.
Make the jelly
For every pint of juice, add a pint of sugar that has been heated in the oven.
Boil the juice for five minutes, then add the sugar and stir until melted.
Remove from heat immediately, ensuring the mixture does not boil after adding sugar.
Optionally, squeeze the currants after the clear juice has been extracted for additional jelly.
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 natural pectin and acid that let the juice set into jelly.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the juice and helps it gel when boiled with the fruit juice.
The step that matters
Remove from heat immediately after adding sugar. Boiling the mixture after the sugar is stirred in can overcook it, darkening the flavour and weakening the set, so it should come off the heat as soon as the sugar dissolves.
“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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