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Dessert

Currant Jam, Black

A jam made from ripe black currants, sugar, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes. The science ↓

Currant Jam, Black

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Put the currants into a preserving pan with the water.

  2. Boil for 10 minutes.

  3. Add the sugar and boil again for 30 minutes, stirring to prevent burning.

  4. Check if the jam sets by pouring a little on a plate.

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. Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

Currant and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Currants
Provide the fruit flavour and natural pectin that help the jam set.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the jam and helps it set and keep by binding water.

The step that matters

Adding the sugar and boiling for 30 minutes. Stirring prevents the sugar and fruit from scorching on the base of the pan. Boiling concentrates the mixture so it can reach a set without over-darkening.

“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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