Why it works: Sugar and black currant work together. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 393 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Black Currant Jellies
Ingredients
Directions
Make the jelly
Soak the gelatine in cold water until soft.
In a pot, combine sugar, glucose, and water; boil until it reaches a stiff ball stage.
Remove from heat and gradually stir in the gelatine until dissolved.
Allow the mixture to sit until scum rises, then skim it off.
Stir in tartaric acid, black currant jelly, and enough purple coloring to achieve a bright hue.
Mould and crystallize
Mould the mixture into desired shapes.
Once set, place the jellies on wire frames for crystallizing.
Cover with cold syrup and let stand for 12 to 14 hours undisturbed.
Drain off excess syrup, carefully remove from tins, and pack on clean trays.
Allow to dry before boxing.
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 + black curranttop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together393 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Gelatine
- Sets the mixture into a firm, elastic jelly body.
- White sugar
- Provides sweetness and the bulk of the candy structure as it cooks and crystallizes.
- Glucose
- Slows sugar crystallization, keeping the jellies smooth and tender rather than grainy.
- Black currant jelly
- Adds fruit flavour and body to the jelly.
- Tartaric acid
- Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and brightens the fruit flavour.
The step that matters
Boiling the sugar syrup to stiff ball stage. Cooking the sugar to the right concentration controls how firm the finished jelly sets. Too little cooking leaves it soft and sticky; too much makes it hard and brittle.
“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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