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Dessert

Red-currant Jelly

A jelly made from red currants and sugar, boiled and set in jars.

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 ↓

Red-currant Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Gather the currants in fine weather and remove them from the stalks.

  2. Place the currants in a jar and set the jar in a saucepan of boiling water.

  3. Simmer until the juice is well drawn from the currants.

  4. Strain the juice through a jelly bag or fine cloth without squeezing too much.

  5. Measure the juice and add 4 pounds of loaf sugar for every 8 pints.

Make the jelly

  1. Put the mixture in a preserving pan over the fire and stir continuously.

  2. Remove any scum that rises using a wooden or silver spoon.

  3. Boil for 20 minutes to 1 hour; test for firmness by placing a little jelly on a plate to cool.

Jar and store

  1. Pour the jelly into small jars, cover with oiled paper, then with tissue paper brushed with egg white.

  2. Label the jars 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. 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 that set the jelly.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the jelly and helps it set firm when boiled with the juice.

The step that matters

Boil for 20 minutes to 1 hour, testing for firmness. Boiling drives off water and concentrates the sugar and pectin so the juice gels. Undercooking leaves a runny jelly, while overcooking can make it stiff and 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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