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Red Currant Jelly

A jelly made from red currants and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Red Currant Jelly

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 ↓

Red Currant Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Pick red currants on a dry day, removing leaves and debris.

  2. Mash the currants slightly in a kettle to release juice and prevent burning.

  3. Stir constantly and heat until hot, then strain through cheesecloth to extract juice.

  4. Measure the juice; for every pint, use one pound of sugar.

Cook the jelly

  1. Boil the juice for 15 minutes, then add the sugar and boil for another 15 minutes, skimming as needed.

  2. Pour the hot jelly into glasses and let it stand until the next day before covering.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

Red currants
Provide the natural pectin and tart juice that set and flavour the jelly.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the juice thicken into a set gel when boiled.

The step that matters

Boiling the juice before adding sugar. Boiling the juice first concentrates it and draws out pectin, so the jelly has enough setting power once sugar is added and boiled again.

“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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