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Crystallised Currants

A recipe for sugar-coated dried red currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Crystallised Currants

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 200°F (93°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 200°F (93°C) to dry the currants.

  2. Rinse and dry the red currants carefully.

Coat the currants

  1. On a plate, mix the egg white well but do not beat it.

  2. Dip the currants in the egg white, ensuring they are well coated.

  3. Roll the coated currants in warmed white sugar until fully covered.

Dry

  1. Place the currants on a sieve and dry them in the oven.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Red currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,156 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Red currant + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Red currants
Provide the fruit whose tart flavour and bright colour are the focus of the sweet coating.
Egg white
Acts as a thin glue that helps the sugar stick evenly to the currant skins.
White sugar
Forms a dry, crisp, sweet crust around each currant as it dries.

The step that matters

Dry the currants in the oven. Egg white and sugar need gentle, low heat to dry into a crisp shell without browning or melting. Too much heat can caramelise the sugar, and the coating may turn sticky or cloudy.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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