Skip to main content
Dessert

Jellied Currants

Currants boiled with sugar to make a sweet jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Currant and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes. The science ↓

Jellied Currants

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick over and wash the currants, then drain well.

  2. Weigh equal quantities of sugar and currants.

Cook and set

  1. Boil the currants for 10 minutes.

  2. Add the sugar and boil for another 10 minutes, starting the timer when the mixture begins to boil.

  3. Pour into cans and let cool; the syrup will set into a fine jelly.

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. Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

Currant and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Currants
Provide the fruit flavour and natural pectin that lets the syrup set into a jelly.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and helps the syrup thicken and set as it cooks and cools.

The step that matters

Timing the second boil. The timer should start only once the mixture is boiling, because the sugar must be boiled long enough to concentrate the syrup. Too short a boil leaves it runny, and boiling too long can make it stiff and dull in flavour.

“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