Why it works: Black currant and sugar work together. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 393 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Common Black Currant Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the black currant juice rapidly for 20 minutes, stirring well.
Remove from heat and mix in ½ pound of sugar for each pound of juice.
Continue boiling for an additional 10 minutes.
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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Black currant + sugartop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together393 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Black currant juice
- Provides the fruit flavour and the pectin and acid that let the jelly set.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and, with the acid and pectin, helps the juice set into a firm gel.
The step that matters
Boiling after the sugar is added. Sugar must dissolve fully and the mixture must keep boiling long enough for the pectin and acid to form a gel. Stopping early can leave the jelly runny, so the extra 10 minutes of boiling matters.
“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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