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Dessert

Black-currant Jam

A jam made from black currants and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Black currant and sugar work together. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 393 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Black-currant Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick the currants carefully.

  2. Combine equal amounts of currants and sugar.

Cook

  1. Dissolve the sugar over low heat or mix it with the currants.

  2. Cook until thickened, stirring frequently.

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. Black currant + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Black currants
Provide natural pectin and acid, which help the jam gel and give it a tart flavour.
Pounded loaf sugar
Adds sweetness, helps the jam thicken and gel, and preserves it.

The step that matters

Cook until thickened, stirring frequently.. Pectin, sugar and acid only set into a gel once the mixture reaches enough concentration. Stirring prevents the sugar from scorching on the base of the pan, which would give a burnt 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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