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Dessert

Black-currant Jam

Jam made from black currants, sugar, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Black currant and sugar work together. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 393 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Black-currant Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the ripe, dry black currants from the stalks.

Make the jam

  1. Place the currants and water in a preserving pan and bring to a boil.

  2. Simmer gently for about 20 minutes.

  3. Add the sugar and boil for about 30 minutes, or until the jam sets when tested on a cold plate.

  4. Stir continuously towards the end to prevent sticking or boiling over.

Jar and store

  1. Pour into jars, cover tightly, and store.

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. Black currant + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Black currants
Provide the fruit, acidity and pectin that give the jam its flavour and body.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the jam and, at high concentration, helps it set and keep.

The step that matters

Boiling with the sugar until it sets. Sugar must be boiled long enough with the fruit for pectin and acid to form a gel, but overboiling can scorch the jam and make it stiff. Testing on a cold plate shows whether it has reached setting point.

“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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