Skip to main content
Dessert

To Preserve Currants

A sweet syrup used to preserve currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and currant 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 ↓

To Preserve Currants

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar and water in a pot over medium heat to make a thin syrup.

  2. Add the currants in large bunches to the boiling syrup.

  3. Let the currants sit in a cool place overnight.

  4. Remove the currants from the syrup.

  5. Place the currants on a dish.

  6. Boil the syrup again.

Finish the syrup

  1. Add the currants back into the syrup, being careful not to break them.

  2. Remove the currants again.

  3. Add more sugar to the syrup.

  4. Mix in 1 quart of currant juice.

  5. Clarify the juice.

  6. Boil the clarified juice to a strong syrup.

  7. Let the syrup cool.

Jar and seal

  1. Place the currants in jars.

  2. Pour the syrup over the currants in the jars.

  3. Seal the jars tightly.

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.

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 + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

Sugar and currant 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 that becomes the preserve, holding their shape in the syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the dish and, at high concentration, helps preserve the fruit.

The step that matters

Add the currants back into the syrup, being careful not to break them.. Currants are delicate and can split when handled or boiled hard. Adding them gently and resting them between boils helps them keep their shape and plump evenly in the syrup.

“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.

You might also like

Red Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesCurrant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipesCurrant SherbetCurrant Sherbet9 recipesCurrant and Raspberry IceCurrant and Raspberry Ice7 recipes