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Red Currant Jelly

A sweet preserve made by boiling red currants with sugar until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Red Currant Jelly

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

Ingredients

Directions

Extract the juice

  1. Place the ripe red currants in an enamelled pan over medium heat.

  2. Stir until the juice begins to flow freely.

  3. Strain the juice through a jelly bag back into the pan.

Make the jelly

  1. Boil the juice for 12 to 15 minutes.

  2. Add 1 pound of sugar for each pint of juice and stir until dissolved.

  3. Boil for an additional 5 minutes.

  4. Pour the jelly into small pots or glasses.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 juice and natural pectin and acidity that give the jelly its body and tang.
Fine loaf sugar
Sweetens the juice and, when boiled, helps the mixture thicken and set into jelly.

The step that matters

Boiling the juice with sugar. Sugar must dissolve fully before the final boil, and the mixture must reach a rolling boil so it reaches the setting point. Undercooking leaves the jelly runny, while overcooking can make it stiff or dull in flavour.

“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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