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Dessert

Currants, Iced

A chilled fruit garnish of currants coated in 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 ↓

Currants, Iced

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the coating

  1. Whisk the egg white until firm.

  2. Mix the egg white with cold water.

Coat and dry

  1. Dip each bunch of currants into the mixture one at a time.

  2. Let them drain for 1 minute.

  3. Roll the currants in finely-pounded white sugar.

  4. Place them on sheets of paper to dry for 4 to 5 hours.

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 white
Forms a thin, glossy film that holds the sugar to the currants.
Finely-pounded white sugar
Forms a crisp, sweet, frosted coating as it dries on the fruit.
Ripe red and white currants
Provide the fruit whose tart juiciness contrasts with the sweet coating.

The step that matters

Drying the coated currants. Sugar sticks to a moist surface, so the coating must be fully dry for a crisp finish. Drying slowly at room air lets the egg white set into a firm, brittle film without the fruit weeping or the sugar dissolving into a sticky layer.

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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