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Dessert

Black-Currant Jam

A jam made from black currants, sugar, and raspberry juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Black currant and raspberry share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 37 recipes. Both carry damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Black-Currant Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Gather the black currants when dry.

Make the jam

  1. In a brass pan, combine the currants, sugar, and raspberry juice.

  2. Stir slowly until it boils.

  3. Boil for five minutes, skimming off any scum that rises.

Jar

  1. Pour into jars and let cool.

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. Black currant + raspberrytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together37 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Sugar + raspberrytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,101 recipes

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

  3. Black currant + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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 currants
Provide the fruit flavor and natural pectin that help the jam set.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the jam and, with boiling, helps it thicken and keep.
Raspberry juice
Adds liquid and extra fruit flavor to the jam.

The step that matters

Boil for five minutes, skimming off any scum that rises. Boiling concentrates the sugar and fruit so the jam can set. Skimming removes foam and impurities, giving a clearer, cleaner-tasting jam.

Swap the black currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, raspberry):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Red currantfits better
  4. Black currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raspberry. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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