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Black Currant Lczenges

A dried sweet treat made from black currants and brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Black currant and sugar work together. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 393 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Black Currant Lczenges

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Put 6 quarts of clean-picked black currants into a saucepan.

  2. Bruise the currants with your hand until the heat allows.

  3. Squeeze the currants through a sieve to extract the juice.

Cook and dry

  1. For every pint of juice, add 4 ounces of brown sugar.

  2. Boil and stir the mixture for 45 minutes.

  3. Pour the mixture thinly over saucers or small plates.

  4. Dry the mixture for three consecutive days near the fire.

Cut and store

  1. Cut into small dice or use a turnip scoop.

  2. Store the pieces on white paper in a box.

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. Black currant + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Black currants
Provide the juice and flavour that form the body of the squares.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the juice and, as it thickens, helps the mixture set into a firm, chewy texture.

The step that matters

Boil and stir the mixture for 45 minutes. Sugar and fruit juice must cook long enough to concentrate and thicken; stirring prevents scorching on the bottom of the pan, which would give a burnt taste.

“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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