Skip to main content
Dessert

Glazed Currants

A sweet treat of currants coated in egg whites and powdered sugar, then dried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Glazed Currants

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the currants

  1. Select large ripe bunches of currants and wash them in cold water.

  2. Drain the currants until dry.

Glaze and dry

  1. Beat the egg whites lightly.

  2. Dip the currants in the egg whites.

  3. Place them on a sieve without touching each other.

  4. Sift powdered sugar over the currants.

  5. Let them dry in a warm 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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Currant + eggtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. 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
Provide the fresh fruit that is coated and dried into a glossy, sugar-crusted cluster.
Egg whites
Act as a thin binder that holds the powdered sugar to the fruit surface, forming the glaze.
Powdered sugar
Forms a dry, sweet, crisp coating once the egg white sets on the fruit.

The step that matters

Placing the currants on the sieve without touching. Currants that touch stay stuck together where the egg white is thick, so the sugar coating cannot reach those surfaces and the glaze dries unevenly. Spacing lets each berry dry on all sides.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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.

You might also like

Red Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesCurrant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipesCurrant SherbetCurrant Sherbet9 recipesCurrant and Raspberry IceCurrant and Raspberry Ice7 recipes