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Dessert

Spiced Currants

A preserved fruit made by boiling red currants with sugar, vinegar, cloves, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spiced Currants

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine red currants, brown sugar, vinegar, ground cloves, and ground cinnamon in a large pot.

  2. Boil the mixture until it thickens.

  3. Pour the thickened mixture into tumblers and seal them.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Red currant + clovetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together128 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  4. Red currant + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together93 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Red currant + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together188 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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 the fruit base, tartness, and natural pectin that helps the mixture set.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it concentrates during boiling, helps the mixture thicken.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sugar and sharpens the fruit flavor.
Ground cloves
Contribute a warm, pungent aroma and spice flavor.
Ground cinnamon
Contributes a sweet, warm aroma and spice flavor.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until it thickens. Boiling evaporates water and concentrates the sugar and currant pectin, which lets the mixture set. Stopping too early leaves it runny, while cooking too long makes it stiff and overly thick.

Swap the red currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Quincefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, clove, 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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