Why it works: Currant and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes. The science ↓
Currant Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Make the juice
Jam and strain the currants.
To each pint of juice, add one pound of sugar.
Cook the jelly
Boil the juice for fifteen minutes without sugar.
Strain into glasses.
Fill the jars
When pouring hot jelly into jars, wring a towel out of cold water and lay it on a table.
Set the cold jars on the towel and pour the boiling jelly into them.
Do not set two jars on the same spot without first wetting the towel.
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.
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Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,256 recipes
Currant and sugar 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
- Currants
- Provide the juice, along with natural pectin and acid that help the jelly set.
- Sugar
- Helps the juice set into a firm jelly and adds sweetness.
The step that matters
Pouring the boiling jelly into the cold jars. A sudden temperature change can crack cold glass when hot liquid touches it. The cold, wet towel cushions the jars and slows that shock, so each jar must sit on a freshly wetted towel spot.
“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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