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Red Currant Jelly

A sweet preserve made by simmering red currants, straining the juice, adding sugar, and setting into jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Red Currant Jelly

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 Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Strip the currants from the stalks.

  2. Place the currants in a jar in a saucepan of boiling water and simmer gently until the juice is extracted.

  3. Strain the juice through a jelly bag or fine cloth into a preserving pan.

Make and store the jelly

  1. Add 4 to 1 lb. of sugar for each pint of juice and boil gently until the jelly sets on a cold plate.

  2. Pour into small pots, cover closely, 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 juice and natural tartness that give the jelly its flavor and set.
Sugar
Sweetens the juice and helps it set into a firm jelly when boiled.

The step that matters

Boiling until the jelly sets on a cold plate. Jelly sets when enough sugar and natural pectin are concentrated by boiling. Too little boiling leaves it runny, while overboiling can make it stiff or cloudy, so testing on a cold plate helps the cook judge the 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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