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Canned Currants

A preserved fruit mixture of currants and sugar, cooked slowly and sealed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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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 ↓

Canned Currants

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and stew

  1. Carefully remove stems from the currants.

  2. Weigh the currants and heat them slowly in a covered kettle.

  3. Stew gently for 20 to 30 minutes.

Sweeten and seal

  1. Add 1 pound of sugar for each pound of fruit.

  2. Shake the kettle occasionally to mix the fruit and sugar.

  3. Keep the mixture hot but do not boil until the sugar is dissolved.

  4. Seal the mixture at once.

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. Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Currants
Provide the fruit, juice, and tart acidity that give the preserve its flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, once dissolved, helps preserve the fruit and thicken its juices.

The step that matters

Keep the mixture hot but do not boil until the sugar is dissolved. Sugar must fully dissolve so it does not later crystallize in the jar. Boiling before that can scorch the sugar and break down the fruit, changing its flavor and texture.

“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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