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Dessert

Red Currant Jam

A jam made from red currants and preserving sugar, cooked until thick.

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

Red Currant Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the stalks from the red currants.

  2. Place the currants in a preserving pan.

  3. Add ½ lb of preserving sugar for each pound of currants.

Cook the jam

  1. Stir occasionally until the mixture is nearly boiling.

  2. Boil gently for about 40 minutes, stirring almost continuously.

Test and store

  1. To test for doneness, pour a little jam onto a cold plate; it should set.

  2. Pour the jam into jars, cover tightly, and store in a cool, dry place.

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
Provide the fruit, natural pectin and acidity that help the jam set.
Preserving sugar
Sweetens the jam and, with the fruit's pectin and acid, helps it set and keeps it preserved.

The step that matters

Testing for doneness on a cold plate. Jam sets as it cools because pectin and sugar form a gel once enough water has evaporated. Boiling too briefly leaves a runny jam, while overcooking can make it stiff. A small cold-plate test shows whether it will set before the pan is taken off the heat.

“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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