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Dessert

Raspberry Jam, Another Way

A jam made from raspberries, sugar, and red currant juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Red currant and currant share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 57 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Raspberry Jam, Another Way

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Weigh equal amounts of raspberries and sugar.

  2. Pound the sugar until fine.

Make the jam

  1. Layer the raspberries and sugar in a preserving pan.

  2. Pour 1 pint of red currant juice over the layers.

  3. Add 1 pound of sugar for the currant juice.

  4. Boil for 15 to 20 minutes, skimming regularly.

  5. Stir only to prevent sticking.

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 + curranttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together57 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Sugar + red curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,156 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

Sugar and currant barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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

Raspberries
Provide the main fruit flavour, colour and body of the jam.
Sugar
Sweetens the jam and helps it set by binding water and pectin during boiling.
Red currant juice
Adds natural pectin and acidity to help the jam set and balance sweetness.

The step that matters

Boil for 15 to 20 minutes, skimming regularly. Boiling concentrates the sugar and fruit until the pectin and acid can form a gel. Skimming removes foam that would otherwise cloud the jam and affect its texture. Stirring only as needed prevents scorching on the base of the pan.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Raspberryfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Blueberryfits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, red currant. 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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