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Dessert

Currant, Blackberry, Strawberry, Etc.

A clear fruit jelly made from currants, blackberries, strawberries, and other fruits, sweetened with sugar.

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 ↓

Currant, Blackberry, Strawberry, Etc.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Place the fruit in a stone jar and set it in a kettle of tepid water over heat.

  2. Boil covered until the fruit breaks apart.

  3. Strain through a coarse bag, pressing hard.

Make the jelly

  1. Measure out 1 pound of sugar for each pint of juice.

  2. Place the sugar in shallow dishes to heat in the oven.

  3. Boil the juice for 20 minutes once it starts boiling.

  4. Stir the sugar occasionally to prevent burning.

  5. Add the hot sugar to the boiling juice.

  6. Stir rapidly until dissolved.

  7. Let the jelly come to a boil.

  8. Remove from heat.

  9. Sterilize your jars in hot water.

  10. Fill them with the hot jelly.

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 juice and flavor that set into the jelly.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly and helps it set to a firm, spreadable texture.

The step that matters

Stir the sugar occasionally to prevent burning. Sugar heated in shallow dishes in the oven can scorch if left unattended, and scorched sugar gives off-flavors and discolors the jelly. Stirring keeps it heating evenly so it dissolves cleanly into the boiling juice.

“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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