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Dessert

Four-fruit Jelly

A fruit jelly made from equal parts strawberries, raspberries, currants, and red cherries, sweetened with loaf sugar.

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 ↓

Four-fruit Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Combine equal quantities of ripe strawberries, raspberries, currants, and pitted red cherries, preserving the juice from the cherries.

  2. Mix the fruit together and place it in a linen bag.

  3. Squeeze the bag thoroughly until it stops dripping.

  4. Measure the juice and, for every pint, add 1 pound 2 ounces of loaf sugar.

Make the jelly

  1. Mix the juice and sugar in a porcelain-lined preserving kettle.

  2. Boil for 30 minutes, skimming frequently.

  3. Dip a spoonful of jelly and hold it in the air.

  4. If it congeals readily, it is done.

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

Strawberries
Provide flavour and natural pectin-bearing juice for the jelly's body.
Raspberries
Add aroma and fruity flavour to the jelly.
Currants
Contribute tartness and natural pectin to help the jelly set.
Red cherries
Add sweetness, colour, and fruity flavour to the jelly.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the jelly and, with boiling, helps it reach a firm set.

The step that matters

Testing for set. Boiling concentrates the juice and sugar until the jelly can set. Stopping too early leaves it runny, while boiling too long can make it stiff and dull in flavour. Testing a spoonful in the air shows whether it congeals.

“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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