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 ↓
Eed Raspberry Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Extract the juice
Clean the berries and currants, then cover them with cold water.
Boil the fruit until all the juice has been extracted, then drain through a cheesecloth bag.
Make the jelly
Boil the juice steadily for 20 minutes.
Heat 1 pint of sugar in the oven, then add it to the juice.
Boil the mixture for 3 to 5 minutes until it forms a clear jelly.
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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Red currant + sugartop 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
- Raspberries
- Provide the main flavour and colour of the jelly.
- Red currants
- Add natural pectin, helping the juice set into a firm jelly.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the jelly and helps it set by binding water and pectin.
The step that matters
Boiling the juice to a set. Boiling concentrates the juice and sugar so the pectin can gel as it cools. Stopping too early leaves the jelly runny, while boiling too long can make it overly stiff and dull.
“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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