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Red Currant Syrup

A syrup made from mashed red currants, water, and sugar, boiled and bottled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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 Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Mash the red currants in a large bowl.

  2. Add the water and let it sit overnight.

  3. Strain the mixture through a jelly bag to extract the juice.

Make the syrup

  1. In a preserving pan, combine the juice with the sugar.

  2. Bring to a boil over medium heat for 10 minutes, skimming off any scum that forms.

Bottle

  1. Once cooled, bottle and cork tightly.

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 fruit flavour and tart acidity that give the syrup its character.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the juice and, once boiled, helps preserve the syrup.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum during the boil. Foam that rises while the juice boils carries impurities and proteins from the fruit. Removing it keeps the syrup clear and gives it a cleaner taste and better keeping quality.

“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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