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 ↓
Fruit Jellies
Ingredients
Directions
Extract the juice
Place the fruit in a stone jar and set it in a kettle of tepid water over heat.
Boil covered until the fruit breaks apart.
Strain the mixture through a coarse bag, pressing hard.
Make the jelly
For each pint of juice, measure out 1 pound of sugar and place it in shallow dishes to heat in the oven.
Boil the juice for 20 minutes once it starts boiling.
When the sugar is very hot, add it to the boiling juice while stirring rapidly.
Once the sugar is dissolved, let the jelly come to a boil, then remove from heat.
Roll glasses or cups in hot water and fill them with the hot jelly.
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.
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Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Currants, blackberries, strawberries
- Provide the fruit juice that sets into the jelly's flavour and colour.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the jelly and helps it set when boiled with the juice.
The step that matters
Adding the hot sugar to the boiling juice. Sugar that is very hot dissolves quickly and evenly when stirred into boiling juice. Adding cold sugar would cool the juice and slow dissolving, which can leave grains and weaken the 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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