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Dessert

Red Currant Syrup

A syrup made by cooking fresh red currants with sugar.

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

Red Currant Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the currants

  1. Pick fresh, ripe currants in dry weather.

  2. Wash the currants and place them in a porcelain-lined or granite-ware kettle.

  3. Stir until tender.

  4. Remove from heat.

Extract and cook the juice

  1. Wring the currants in cheesecloth to extract juice.

  2. Measure the juice.

  3. Return the juice to the kettle.

  4. Cook the juice for 15 minutes.

  5. Add 1 pound of granulated sugar for each quart of juice.

  6. Boil gently for 15 minutes.

  7. Skim off any scum.

Bottle and store

  1. Bottle and cork well.

  2. Store in a dark place.

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

Fresh red currants
Supply the juice, tartness and color that give the syrup its flavor.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the juice and helps preserve the syrup by raising its sugar concentration.

The step that matters

Boil gently after adding sugar. Sugar is added to the hot juice and boiled gently so it dissolves fully and the syrup thickens. Vigorous boiling can scorch the sugar and darken the syrup.

“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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