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Jams and Preserves

A sweet fruit preserve made by boiling fruit with sugar until jelly-like.

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

Jams and Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and heat

  1. Layer the fruit and sugar alternately in a preserving pan.

  2. Bring the mixture slowly to a boil over low heat.

  3. Stir occasionally, keeping the fruit as whole as possible.

Boil and skim

  1. Boil until the mixture reaches a jelly-like consistency when dropped on a cold saucer.

  2. Skim off any scum with a wooden spoon just before the jam is ready.

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

Fruit
Provides the main flavour and the natural acid that helps the jam set.
Refined sugar
Sweetens the jam, draws water out of the fruit, and helps it thicken and keep.

The step that matters

Boil until jelly-like on a cold saucer. Stopping too early leaves the jam runny and prone to spoiling, while boiling too long makes it stiff and dull. The cold saucer test shows when the sugar and fruit have reached the concentration needed to set.

“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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