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Red Currant Jelly

A jelly made from red currants and sugar, cooked and strained into jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Red Currant Jelly

Why it works: Red currant and sugar 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 ↓

Red Currant Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the currants from the stalks and place them in a broad pan.

  2. Add 1 pound of sifted lump sugar to the currants and let it sit overnight to draw out the juice.

Cook and strain

  1. Transfer the currants to a preserving pan and simmer gently over low heat for about 20 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve and then through a jelly bag while hot.

Make the jelly

  1. For each quart of juice, add 1 pound of pounded lump sugar.

  2. Boil the mixture in a preserving pan over high heat for 20 minutes.

  3. Pour the jelly into pots or glasses and cover as you would other sweet preserves.

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. Red currant + sugartop 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

Red currants
Provide the juice and natural pectin that allow the jelly to set.
Sugar
Draws out juice, sweetens, and helps the jelly set and keep.

The step that matters

Boiling the juice with sugar over high heat for 20 minutes. Boiling evaporates water and concentrates the sugar and pectin until the mixture reaches the gel point. Too little boiling leaves the jelly runny, while overcooking can make it dull and overly stiff.

“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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