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Dried Currants

A method for drying ripe red currants by coating them with gum Arabic and sugar and sun‑drying.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Dried Currants

Why it works: Sugar and red currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,156 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Dried Currants

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the coating

  1. Dissolve a sufficient quantity of gum Arabic in a basin of water to make it thick.

Coat and dry

  1. Dip bunches of ripe red currants into the gum water.

  2. Roll the currants in pounded sugar.

  3. Lay the currants separately on a dish to dry in the sun.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Sugar + red curranttop 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

Gum arabic
Thickened water acts as a sticky binder that holds the sugar to the fruit.
Pounded sugar
Forms a dry, sweet coating on the outside of each currant as it dries.
Ripe red currants
Provide the tart fruit, which concentrates in flavour as its moisture evaporates.

The step that matters

Rolling the currants in sugar while still sticky. The gum water is the only adhesive, so the currants must be rolled soon after dipping, while the film is wet, or the sugar will not cling. Laying them apart lets air dry them evenly and stops them sticking together.

“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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