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 ↓
Cuerant Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Strain and squeeze the currants to extract the juice.
Measure the juice and place it in a large crock.
Make the jelly
Add 1 pound of sugar for every pint of juice.
Boil the juice on the stove for 20 minutes.
Pour the hot juice over the sugar in the crock and stir until dissolved.
Store
You can store the jelly in the same crock or transfer it to tumblers.
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.
-
Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Currant juice
- Provides the fruit flavor, plus natural pectin and acid that help the jelly set.
- Granulated sugar
- Adds sweetness and, with pectin and acid, helps the juice form a firm gel.
The step that matters
Stirring the hot juice into the sugar until dissolved. Sugar crystals that remain undissolved can make the finished jelly grainy, and the sugar must be fully dissolved to combine evenly with the juice for a proper set.
“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 jelly recipes
You might also like
Currant Ice Cream32 recipes
Currant Sherbet9 recipes
Currant and Raspberry Ice7 recipes
White Cake431 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.