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Dessert

Iced Currants

A confection of currants coated in powdered sugar after being dipped in beaten egg whites and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Iced Currants

Ingredients

Directions

Make the coating

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Mix the egg whites with water.

Coat and dry

  1. Dip each bunch of currants into the mixture, letting them drain for 1-2 minutes.

  2. Roll the drained currants in powdered sugar.

  3. Place the sugared currants on paper to dry and crystallize.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Egg + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. 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

Egg whites
Whipped and thinned, they form a sticky film that holds the powdered sugar on the fruit.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the outside and forms a crisp, frosted crust as it dries.
Currants
The fruit inside, which is coated and dried to a frosted shell.

The step that matters

Draining the dipped currants. Excess egg white left on the fruit makes the sugar clump and turn wet instead of forming a fine, dry, even crust. Letting the currants drain for 1-2 minutes keeps the coating thin so it can dry and crystallize.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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