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 ↓
Currant and Raspberry Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Wash and prepare equal amounts of currants and raspberries.
Strain the juice from the fruits.
For every pint of juice, add 1 pound of sugar.
Cook the mixture until it reaches the desired jelly consistency.
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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Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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 natural pectin and tart acidity that help the jelly set and taste bright.
- Raspberries
- Add aroma and flavour to the jelly, balancing the tartness of the currants.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the jelly and helps it set by binding water and concentrating the fruit juice.
The step that matters
Cooking to the set point. Cook until the mixture reaches the desired jelly consistency. Undercooking leaves the jelly runny because pectin and sugar have not formed a gel, while overcooking 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.
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