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Dessert

Black Currant Jam

Jam made from black currants, red currant juice, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Red currant and black currant share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 72 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Black Currant Jam

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the red currant juice and black currants in a pot.

  2. Add the granulated sugar to the mixture.

  3. Boil for 15 minutes after it starts to bubble, stirring well.

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 + black curranttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together72 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Sugar + black curranttop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. 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

Black currants
Provide the fruit flavour and the bulk of the jam's body once cooked down.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the jam and helps it set and keep by binding water and thickening as it cooks.
Red currant juice
Adds liquid and extra tartness and pectin to help the jam cook down and set.

The step that matters

Boiling for 15 minutes after it starts to bubble. Jam sets when enough water evaporates and the sugar and fruit pectin reach the right concentration. Boiling too briefly leaves it runny, while boiling too long can scorch the sugar and dull the flavour, so stir well to prevent sticking.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, black currant):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Red currantthe original
  3. Blueberryfits less well
  4. Raspberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, black currant. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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