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Dessert

Iced Currants

A chilled dessert of currants coated in powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Iced Currants

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Select fine bunches of currants.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  3. Mix the egg whites with water.

Coat and dry

  1. Dip each bunch of currants in the mixture, then let them drain for 1-2 minutes.

  2. Roll the drained currants in finely powdered sugar.

  3. Lay them to dry on paper until the sugar crystallizes.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. White currant + sugartop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together59 recipes
  3. Egg + white curranttop 38% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Form a thin coating that holds the sugar to the currants as it dries.
Finely powdered sugar
Creates the crisp, frosted sweet coating once it dries and crystallizes.
Red or white currants
Provide the tart fruit inside the sugar shell.

The step that matters

Letting the currants drain before rolling in sugar. Excess liquid left on the currants dissolves the powdered sugar into a wet paste instead of a dry, crisp layer. Draining for the stated time lets the thin egg white coating set so the sugar sticks evenly and dries crystalline.

Swap the white currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. White currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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