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Dessert

Red Currant Marmalade

A sweet preserve made from red currants, raisins, sugar, oranges, mace, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Red Currant Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Boil the currants and press them through a sieve.

  2. Boil the yellow rind of the oranges in a little water and chop finely.

  3. Chop the raisins and the pulp of the oranges.

Make the marmalade

  1. Combine all ingredients and boil together until thick, about 30 to 45 minutes.

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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  2. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Red currants
Supply pectin and tartness that help the marmalade thicken and set.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, with the fruit pectin, helps the marmalade set as water evaporates.
Oranges
Add acidity and bitter aroma from the rind, balancing the sweetness.
Raisins
Add sweetness, body and chewy texture.

The step that matters

Boil until thick. The mixture sets as water evaporates and sugar and pectin concentrate. Stopping too early leaves it runny, while boiling too long makes it stiff and can scorch the sugar.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (currant, raisin, sugar, orange, cinnamon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against currant, raisin, sugar, orange, cinnamon. 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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