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Red Currant Jelly

A sweet jelly made from red currants and sugar, set with brandy-soaked paper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Red Currant Jelly

Why it works: Red currant and brandy work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 105 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Red Currant Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Strip the currants from the stalks.

  2. Combine equal weights of currants and sugar in a pot.

  3. Clarify the sugar.

Cook the jelly

  1. Boil until the mixture reaches candy height.

  2. Add the currants.

  3. Boil for 15 minutes.

  4. Skim off any scum.

  5. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve into small pots.

Set and seal

  1. Let the jelly sit overnight before covering it.

  2. Place paper soaked in brandy over the jelly before sealing.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together105 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Red currants
Their natural pectin and acidity help the jelly set and give it a tart flavour.
Granulated sugar
Provides sweetness and preservation, and its high concentration helps the jelly gel.

The step that matters

Boil until the mixture reaches candy height. Sugar concentration, pectin and acid together form the gel. Stopping too early leaves the jelly runny, while overcooking makes it stiff and dull.

Swap the red currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. 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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