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
Prepare equal amounts of ripe strawberries, raspberries, currants, and stoned red cherries, preserving the juice from the cherries.
Mix the fruit together and place it in a linen bag; squeeze thoroughly until it stops dripping.
Measure the juice and for each pint, add 1 pound and 2 ounces of loaf sugar.
Cook and test
Combine the juice and sugar in a porcelain-lined preserving kettle and boil for 30 minutes, skimming frequently.
To test, dip a spoonful of jelly and hold it in the air; if it congeals quickly, it is done.
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
- Strawberries
- Provide flavour and natural pectin-bearing body to the jelly.
- Raspberries
- Add aroma and a bright, floral fruit flavour to the jelly.
- Currants
- Contribute tartness and natural pectin that helps the jelly set.
- Red cherries
- Add sweetness, colour and depth of fruit flavour to the jelly.
- Loaf sugar
- Sweetens the juice and, with boiling, helps the jelly set and keep.
The step that matters
Testing for the set. Jelly sets as boiling concentrates the juice and sugar until pectin forms a gel on cooling. Stopping too early leaves it runny, while boiling too long can make it stiff and dull in flavour, so the cold-spoon test matters.
“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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