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Red Currant Jelly

A sweet jelly made from red and white currants and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Red Currant Jelly

Why it works: Red currant and white currant share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Red Currant Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Combine the red and white currants in a clean preserving pan.

  2. Stir gently over medium heat until the juice flows freely.

  3. Pour the mixture into a fine sieve and let it drain without pressure.

  4. Pass the juice through a folded muslin or jelly bag.

  5. Weigh the juice.

Make the jelly

  1. Boil the juice rapidly for 15 minutes.

  2. For each pound of juice, add 8 ounces of coarsely powdered sugar.

  3. Stir off the heat until the sugar is dissolved.

  4. Boil the jelly for an additional 8 minutes.

  5. Skim off any scum.

Jar and cool

  1. Pour the jelly into jars.

  2. Let the jelly cool.

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 + white curranttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Red currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,156 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. White currant + sugartop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together59 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Red currants
Provide the main pectin and tart acidity that give the jelly its body and flavour.
White currants
Add extra juice and pectin while keeping the jelly's colour lighter and its flavour mild.
Coarsely powdered sugar
Sweetens the jelly and helps it set by binding water and concentrating the pectin.

The step that matters

Boil the jelly for an additional 8 minutes after adding the sugar. Sugar must dissolve fully before the final boil; the jelly needs enough boiling to reach the concentration at which pectin and acid set. Undercooking leaves it runny, while overcooking can make it dull and tough.

Swap the white currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (red currant, sugar):

  1. Raspberryfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. White currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against red currant, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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