Skip to main content
Dessert

French Currant Jelly

A jelly made from red and white currants sweetened with sugar and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

French Currant Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Extract the juice

  1. Mix the red and white currants in a pot over gentle heat until they release their juice.

  2. Strain the mixture and weigh the juice.

Make the syrup

  1. In a separate pot, combine the sugar and water, and heat until the sugar dissolves into a thick syrup.

  2. Stir the syrup continuously until it falls in large thick masses from the skimmer.

Cook and set

  1. Pour the currant juice into the syrup and boil quickly for 5 minutes.

  2. Skim off any scum, then pour the jelly into jars or warm glasses.

  3. Set the jars in a cool place to set.

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 + 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 fruit flavour and natural pectin for the jelly to set.
White currants
Add tartness and a lighter flavour while contributing to the jelly's gel.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly and helps it set into a firm, spreadable gel.

The step that matters

Stir the syrup until it falls in large thick masses. Sugar must be cooked to the right concentration for the jelly to set. Too little cooking leaves it runny, while overcooking can make it stiff or grainy.

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.

You might also like

Red Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesCurrant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipesCurrant SherbetCurrant Sherbet9 recipesCurrant and Raspberry IceCurrant and Raspberry Ice7 recipes