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Dessert

Strawberry or Raspberry Jam

A fruit jam made by cooking strawberries or raspberries with sugar until it sets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and currant 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 ↓

Strawberry or Raspberry Jam

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Weigh the ripe fruit and measure an equal weight of sugar.

  2. Combine the fruit and sugar in a pot.

  3. Cook over medium heat until the mixture jellifies when cooled.

  4. For raspberry jam, add a little currant juice while cooking.

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. Sugar + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

Sugar and currant 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

Strawberries or raspberries
Provide the fruit body, flavor, and natural pectin-bearing pulp that forms the jam.
Sugar
Sweetens the jam and, with cooking, helps it thicken and set as it cools.
Currant juice
Adds natural pectin and tartness to help raspberry jam set.

The step that matters

Cook until the mixture jellifies when cooled. Jam sets because sugar and pectin gel as water evaporates. Too little cooking leaves it runny, while overcooking can make it stiff and dull in flavor. Test by cooling a small spoonful.

“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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