Why it works: Sugar and currant 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 ↓
To Preserve Strawberries and Raspberries
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the sugar
Select the best strawberries and raspberries.
For every pound of fruit, use a pound of sugar.
Clarify the sugar.
Boil the sugar until it reaches a candy-high consistency.
Reserve a little sugar to sprinkle later.
Cook the fruit
Once the syrup is ready, add the fruit.
Boil the mixture quickly.
Sprinkle in the reserved sugar as it boils.
When it begins to boil over, remove the syrup.
Let it cool until almost cold.
Add ½ pint of currant juice for every pound of fruit.
Boil the mixture until the syrup hangs in flakes from the spoon.
Skim off any scum as the fruit rises.
Remove from heat.
Pour into pots or glasses.
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.
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Sugar + curranttop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,256 recipes
Sugar and currant 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
- Strawberries
- Provide the main fruit flavour and soft texture in the preserve.
- Raspberries
- Add tart aroma and fruit body to the preserve.
- Single-refined sugar
- Sweetens and, when boiled, thickens the syrup that sets the preserve.
- Currant juice
- Adds acidity and natural pectin to help the preserve set.
The step that matters
Boiling until the syrup hangs in flakes. Boiling must go far enough to concentrate the sugar so the preserve sets, but not so long that it darkens or turns hard. Removing from heat at the right point keeps the fruit bright and the set soft.
“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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