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Dessert

Spiced Currants

A jam-like preserve made by boiling currants with sugar and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spiced Currants

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jam

  1. Boil the currants until they reach a jam-like consistency.

  2. Add an equal weight of sugar and boil until thick.

  3. Stir in 1 teaspoon of cassia buds, pepper, cloves, and allspice for every pound of currants, then boil for a few more minutes.

Strain and finish

  1. Squeeze the currants through a linen bag to extract the juice.

  2. For every pint of juice, add 1 pound of white crushed sugar.

  3. Beat the mixture with a wooden spoon for half an hour until no sugar grains remain.

  4. Skim off any foam and pour into 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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cassia + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together194 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Cassia + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together41 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Currants
Provide the fruit body, natural pectin and tartness that help the jam set.
Sugar
Sweetens the jam and, once dissolved, thickens it and helps it keep.
Cassia buds
Add a warm, sweet aroma that lifts the fruit flavour.
Cloves
Add a pungent, warming aroma that complements the currants.
Allspice
Adds a warm, peppery-sweet aroma to the fruit.

The step that matters

Beating in the sugar until no grains remain. Undissolved sugar crystals make the jam gritty and can cause uneven setting. Beating the mixture while it is still warm helps the sugar dissolve fully and distribute evenly through the juice.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cassia, pepper, clove, allspice):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cassia, pepper, clove, allspice. 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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