Skip to main content
Dessert

Black-Currant Jelly

A preserved jelly made from black currants and sugar, set with egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Black-Currant Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Extract juice from the black currants.

  2. For each pint of juice, add ½ lb of loaf sugar.

Make the jelly

  1. In a preserving pan, combine juice and sugar over heat.

  2. Stir continuously and remove any scum with a wooden or silver spoon.

  3. Boil for 20 minutes to 1 hour until firm when cooled.

Jar and store

  1. Pour into small jars and cover with oiled paper and tissue paper brushed with egg white.

  2. Label jars with the year made and store in a dry place.

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. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Black currant + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Black currant + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Black currants
Provide the juice that gives the jelly its flavour, colour and natural pectin.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the juice and helps the jelly set firm when boiled.
Egg white
Brushed on the tissue paper to help it seal to the jar.

The step that matters

Boiling until the jelly is firm. Boiling time varies, and the jelly sets only when enough water has evaporated and sugar and pectin reach the right concentration. Testing that it sets when cooled prevents a runny result.

Swap the black currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Black currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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.

You might also like

Red Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesCurrant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipesCurrant SherbetCurrant Sherbet9 recipesCurrant and Raspberry IceCurrant and Raspberry Ice7 recipes