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Dessert

Dessert Ice Currants

Dessert of currants coated in sugar and chilled with beaten egg whites.

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 ↓

Dessert Ice Currants

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the coating

  1. Beat the egg whites until frothy.

  2. Add the clear spring water and mix thoroughly.

Coat and dry

  1. Immerse each bunch of currants in the mixture one at a time.

  2. Let the currants drip for one minute.

  3. Roll the currants in finely sifted sugar, repeating the rolling process.

  4. Place the currants on paper with space between each bunch to dry and crystallize.

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 liquid coating that dries into a glossy, crisp shell around each currant.
Finely sifted sugar
Adds sweetness and forms a crystalline, sparkling layer over the coating.

The step that matters

Rolling in sugar. The coating must be wet enough to hold sugar but not so heavy that it pools. Repeating the roll builds an even layer, and spacing the bunches lets air dry them so they crystallize rather than clump or weep.

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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