Why it works: Sugar and red currant 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 ↓
Currant Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Heat 1 pint of smooth clarified sugar in a saucepan until it boils.
Add 1 quart of picked red currants and boil for 30 minutes.
Skim off the scum and add cold water as needed.
Once boiled, strain the mixture through a sieve into a basin.
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.
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Sugar + red curranttop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Clarified sugar
- Sweetens the juice and helps it set into a firm, glossy jelly.
- Red currants
- Provide the flavour, natural acidity and pectin that let the juice gel.
The step that matters
Boiling the currants for 30 minutes. Boiling drives off water and concentrates the sugar, acid and pectin from the fruit. If the boil is too short, the juice may not thicken and set properly.
“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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