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Jellies, Jams and Syrups

A method for making fruit jellies, jams, and syrups by crushing fruit, extracting juice, and boiling with sugar.

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 ↓

Jellies, Jams and Syrups

Ingredients

Directions

Extract the juice

  1. Crush the fruit and place it in a stone jar.

  2. Set the jar in a vessel of boiling water.

  3. Heat over low heat until you can express the juice.

  4. Squeeze out the juice.

Make the jelly

  1. Add an equal amount of water.

  2. Boil the mixture for 20 minutes.

  3. Add 1 pound of sugar for every pint of the mixed fluid.

  4. Heat until the sugar is melted.

  5. Pour the jelly into 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.

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

Small fruits (berries, currants)
Provide the juice that sets into the jelly, along with flavour and natural pectin.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly and, with heat and acid, helps it set firm.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for 20 minutes. Boiling concentrates the juice and sugar so the mixture reaches the gel point. Too short a boil leaves a runny jelly, while overboiling can make it dull or sugary.

“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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