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Dessert

Gooseberry Jelly

A preserve made from gooseberries, red currants, water, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Gooseberry Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Extract the juice

  1. Wash the gooseberries and currants.

  2. Place them in a saucepan with 4 cups of water and bring to a boil.

  3. Boil gently for 5 minutes, then pour into a jelly bag and let it drain completely.

Make the jelly

  1. Measure the juice and add 1 lb of sugar for each pint of juice.

  2. Put the mixture back on the heat and stir frequently until it boils.

  3. Allow it to boil for 10 minutes, then skim off any foam and pour into jars.

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

Gooseberries
Provide pectin and acidity that help the jelly set.
Red currants
Add more pectin and tartness to support the set and flavour.
Sugar
Helps the jelly set and preserves it while adding sweetness.

The step that matters

Boiling the juice with sugar. The mixture must reach and hold a full rolling boil so the pectin and acid work with the sugar to set. Boiling too briefly leaves the jelly runny, while overcooking can make it stiff or dull.

“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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