Name: Currant Jelly in Moulds
Ingredients: 1 pint fresh currant juice; 1 ounce isinglass; ½ cup water; ½ pound powdered sugar

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 in Moulds

Ingredients

1 pint fresh currant juice
1 ounce isinglass
½ cup water
½ pound powdered sugar

Directions

Prepare

Squeeze the juice from fresh currants to obtain 1 pint.
Boil 1 ounce of isinglass in ½ cup of water for 15 minutes.

Make the jelly

Mix the isinglass mixture with the currant juice and powdered sugar.
Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

Set

Pour into moulds and let set.

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.

Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked 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

Fresh currant juice: Provides the main flavour and tartness of the jelly.
Isinglass: Gelatine-like protein that sets the juice into a firm jelly when cooled.
Powdered sugar: Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the currant juice.