Skip to main content
Dessert

Jelly, Red Currant

A sweet jelly made from boiled red currants and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Jelly, Red Currant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and dry the red currants thoroughly.

  2. Place the currants in a preserving pan and boil until all the juice is released.

  3. Strain the juice through a jelly bag.

Make the jelly

  1. Add 1 pound of sugar for every pound of juice.

  2. Boil quickly until clear, then remove from heat.

Pot and store

  1. Pour the jelly into hot glasses or jars, filling them to the brim.

  2. Cover the jars the day after making.

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
Red currants supply the juice, pectin and tartness that give the jelly its flavour and set.
Sugar
Sugar sweetens the jelly and, boiled with the juice, helps it set and keep.

The step that matters

Boiling quickly until clear. The boil must be brisk enough to concentrate the juice with sugar so the pectin can set it. Too short a boil leaves the jelly runny, while too long a boil makes it stiff and 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.

You might also like

Currant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipesCurrant SherbetCurrant Sherbet9 recipesCurrant and Raspberry IceCurrant and Raspberry Ice7 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes