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 ↓
Currant Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Wash the currants and combine them with the raspberries in a preserving kettle.
Mash the fruits and boil for twenty minutes until thoroughly cooked.
Place about a quart of the mixture in a jelly bag and squeeze out all the juice.
Measure the juice.
Make the jelly
For each pint of juice, add one pound of sugar.
Boil the juice rapidly for five minutes.
Add the sugar and boil for one minute longer.
Remove from heat and skim clear.
Pour into jelly glasses.
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.
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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
- Currants
- Supply natural pectin and tart acidity that help the juice set into jelly.
- Raspberries
- Add flavor and aroma to the juice and soften the fruit when mashed and boiled.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the juice and helps it set into a firm, spreadable gel.
The step that matters
Boil the juice rapidly for five minutes before adding the sugar. Boiling the juice hard concentrates it and activates the natural pectin, which is needed for the jelly to set. Insufficient boiling can leave the jelly runny.
“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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