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 ↓
Raspberry Jam
Ingredients
Directions
Mash the raspberries in a pan with a wooden spoon.
Add the sugar to the mashed fruit.
Boil the mixture hard for 15 to 20 minutes.
For added flavor and color, you can include 1 pound of ripe currants.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Sugar + curranttop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Raspberries
- Form the fruit base and supply most of the jam's flavor and body.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the jam and helps it thicken and set while preserving it.
- Ripe currants
- Add extra flavor and deeper color; optional.
The step that matters
Boiling hard for 15 to 20 minutes. Vigorous boiling evaporates water and concentrates the sugar and fruit acids so the natural pectin can gel. Boiling too briefly leaves the jam runny, while overcooking can make it stiff and dull in flavor.
“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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