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Currant Jam

A preserve made from currants and sugar boiled until thickened.

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 ↓

Currant Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick currants from stems.

  2. Wash thoroughly.

  3. Put currants into a preserving kettle.

Make the jam

  1. Boil for 15-20 minutes, stirring often and skimming off any scum.

  2. Add sugar in the proportion of ¾ pound sugar to 1 pound fruit, or 1 cup sugar to 1 pint mashed fruit.

  3. Boil for an additional 30 minutes, stirring almost constantly.

Jar

  1. Pour into small jars or glasses.

  2. Seal or secure like jelly.

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
Provides the fruit base, flavor, and body of the jam.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the jam thicken and keep as it cooks.

The step that matters

Adding the sugar and boiling the additional 30 minutes. Sugar must dissolve fully and the mixture must cook long enough to reach setting point. Stopping early leaves the jam runny, while stirring almost constantly prevents the sugar and fruit from scorching on the bottom of the kettle.

“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.

More currant jam recipes

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