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Canned Currants

A preserved fruit product made by stewing currants with sugar and canning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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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 ↓

Canned Currants

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Carefully stem and weigh the currants.

  2. In a kettle, combine the currants and sugar.

Stew and can

  1. Cover and heat slowly, stewing gently for 20 to 30 minutes.

  2. Shake the kettle occasionally to mix the sugar with the fruit.

  3. Do not allow to boil; keep as hot as possible until the sugar dissolves.

  4. Pour into cans and secure the covers immediately.

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. Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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 fruit, flavor and tartness that form the body of the preserve.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and helps preserve it once it dissolves into the juices.

The step that matters

Do not allow to boil; keep as hot as possible until the sugar dissolves.. Gentle heat lets the sugar dissolve fully without overcooking the fruit, which keeps the currants whole and the texture smooth. Boiling can break down the pectin and scorch the sugar, so the sealed cans may end up with an uneven set and a darker, cooked flavor.

“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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