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 ↓
Good Red or White Raspberry Jam
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the fruit
Boil the raspberries and currant juice quickly for 20 minutes.
Add the sugar and finish
Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the sugar until dissolved.
Return the pan to the heat and boil for an additional 10 minutes.
Skim off any foam and stir the mixture continuously.
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.
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Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Raspberries
- Provide the main fruit flavor and body of the jam.
- Currant juice
- Adds acidity and natural pectin, helping the jam set.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and thickens the jam while helping preserve it.
The step that matters
Dissolve the sugar fully before reboiling. Sugar stirred in off the heat should dissolve completely before the pan returns to the boil. Undissolved sugar can scorch on the bottom or form crystals, and continuous stirring keeps the fruit from sticking and burning.
“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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