Skip to main content
Dessert

Red Currant Jelly Without Boiling

A jelly made from red currants and sugar, set without boiling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Red currant and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,156 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Red Currant Jelly Without Boiling

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Pick the currants from the stalks and strain the juice into a basin.

  2. Weigh the juice and take an equal quantity of sugar, rolling or breaking it into small pieces.

Set the jelly

  1. Stir the sugar into the juice with a silver or bone spoon until dissolved, about 15 minutes.

  2. Pour the syrup into jelly glasses or small pots and leave uncovered overnight to set.

  3. Tie down the pots with brandy paper as for other jams or jellies.

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. Red currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,156 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Red currants
Their natural pectin and acidity help the juice gel and give the jelly a bright, tart flavour.
Finest loaf sugar
Adds sweetness, thickens the syrup so it can set, and helps preserve the jelly.

The step that matters

Stir the sugar until fully dissolved. Sugar grains left undissolved in the juice can recrystallise as the jelly sets, leaving it grainy instead of smooth and clear. Stirring slowly with a non-reactive spoon helps the sugar dissolve completely before the syrup is poured.

“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

Currant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipesCurrant SherbetCurrant Sherbet9 recipesCurrant and Raspberry IceCurrant and Raspberry Ice7 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes