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Currant Clear Cakes

A clear cake made from currants, water, and sifted sugar, boiled and set in molds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 Clear Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Strip and prepare the currants.

  2. Boil the currants with water until well cooked.

  3. Strain the mixture through a bag to extract the juice.

Make the jelly

  1. For every quart of juice, add 3 pounds of sifted sugar.

  2. Heat the juice until just boiling, then stir in the sugar until dissolved.

  3. Strain the mixture into a broad pan and remove any scum.

  4. Pour the mixture into pots or molds and place in a warm oven to 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.

  1. 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

Currants
Provide the pectin and tart flavor that give the jelly its body and character.
Sugar
Sweetens the juice and helps it set into a firm, clear jelly.
Water
Helps the currants cook down and release their juice.

The step that matters

Heat the juice until just boiling, then stir in the sugar until dissolved.. Sugar must fully dissolve before the mixture is brought to a set. Undissolved sugar can cause grainy texture, while overcooking can make the jelly too stiff or dull in color.

“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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