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
Make the juice
Wash the currants and place them in a kettle over low heat with a small amount of water.
Cool and strain the mixture to extract the juice.
Make the jelly
For every pint of juice, add 1 pound of sugar.
Boil for 20 minutes once boiling begins.
Seal and set
When cool, pour 1 teaspoon of melted paraffin over the top of each glass.
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
- Provide the fruit juice that gives the jelly its flavour and natural pectin.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the juice and helps the mixture set into a jelly when boiled.
- Paraffin
- Forms a wax seal on the surface of each glass to protect the jelly.
The step that matters
Boiling the juice with sugar for 20 minutes. Boiling concentrates the juice and sugar so pectin and acid can form a gel when cooled. Boiling too briefly can leave the jelly runny, while boiling too long can make it stiff or cause the sugar to darken.
“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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