Skip to main content
Dessert

Jim Jam

A jam made from currant juice, raspberry juice, orange rind, raisins, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Raspberry and orange work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 521 recipes. Both carry damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Jim Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the rind of the oranges into tiny dice, and remove seeds and partitions.

Cook

  1. Combine currant juice, raspberry juice, orange rind, raisins, and sugar in a pot.

  2. Cook the mixture over medium heat for at least 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

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. Raspberry + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together521 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Currant + raspberrytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together366 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  3. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Orange + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the jam and, at this quantity, helps it thicken and set as it cooks.
Currant juice
Provides the main liquid and tart fruit flavor that forms the jam base.
Raspberry juice
Adds fruity flavor and liquid that combines with the sugar to form the jam.
Raisins
Add body and chewy texture, plus concentrated sweetness, to the jam.
Oranges
Their rind adds bitter aromatic flavor and texture to balance the sweetness.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture over medium heat for at least 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Sugar and fruit must be cooked long enough to reach the gel point, where pectin and sugar set the jam. Stirring prevents sticking and scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raspberry, orange, raisin, 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.

You might also like

Currant and Raspberry IceCurrant and Raspberry Ice7 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesRaspberry JamRaspberry Jam150 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipes