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Dessert

Strawberry Jam, Superior

A jam made from ripe currants, strawberries, and refined loaf sugar, boiled until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Red currant and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,156 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Strawberry Jam, Superior

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Extract the juice from the currants and place it in a preserving pan.

  2. Add the cleaned strawberries to the pan.

Cook the jam

  1. Bring the mixture to a boil and remove any scum that forms.

  2. Stir in the sugar and boil the jam quickly until done, about 30 to 40 minutes.

  3. Pour the jam into jars and cover them as usual.

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. Red currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,156 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Currants
Their juice adds natural pectin and tartness that help the jam set and balance the sweetness.
Strawberries
They supply the main flavour, colour and fruit body of the jam.
Sugar
It sweetens the jam, helps it set and preserves it by binding water.

The step that matters

Boiling the jam quickly after adding the sugar. A rapid boil drives off water and brings the sugar and pectin to the concentration needed to set. Boiling too gently for too long can dull the colour and flavour, while stopping too early leaves the jam runny.

“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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