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Dessert

Fine Currant Syrup

A syrup made by extracting juice from currants, sweetening with sugar, and boiling until thickened.

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

Fine Currant Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Strip the currants from the stalks and express the juice.

  2. Strain the juice into a clean earthen pitcher.

  3. Let the strained juice sit in a cool place for 24 hours or until curdled.

  4. Pour the juice through a fine sieve.

  5. Pour the juice through a jelly bag without pressure.

Make the syrup

  1. Weigh the juice and add an equal amount of sugar, stirring until dissolved.

  2. Boil the mixture gently for 4-5 minutes, skimming off any scum.

Bottle and store

  1. After 12 hours, pour the syrup into small dry bottles.

  2. Cork the bottles.

  3. Store the bottles in a cool, 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. 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
Provide the tart juice that forms the base and flavour of the syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the juice and, with boiling, thickens it into a syrup that keeps well.

The step that matters

Boiling the juice and sugar. Boiling gently for only 4-5 minutes, while skimming scum, concentrates the syrup and removes foam without caramelising the sugar. Boiling too long or too hard can darken and thicken it too much.

“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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