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Dessert

Strawberry Jam

A jam made from strawberries, currants, sugar, and water, cooked until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Strawberry Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine the mashed currants with 1 cup of water and bring to a boil.

  2. Press the mixture through a fine sieve into an earthenware pan.

Make the jam

  1. Add the sugar and 4.5 cups of water, boiling until it reaches a thick molasses consistency.

  2. Add the pulped strawberries to the sugar mixture and cook over brisk heat for 20 minutes, stirring constantly.

Finish

  1. Skim off any foam, then pour the jam into glass jars or tumblers and let cool completely before sealing.

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

Strawberries
Provide the main fruit flavor and bulk of the jam.
Currants
Add natural pectin and tartness that help the jam set and balance the sweetness.
Sugar
Sweetens the jam, thickens it as it cooks, and helps preserve it.

The step that matters

Cooking the strawberries with the sugar syrup. The sugar-rich mixture can scorch on the bottom of the pan under brisk heat. Stirring constantly spreads the heat evenly and keeps the jam from sticking and burning while it thickens.

“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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