Home › The Principles of Cookery › Currant Jelly, Black
Currant Jelly, Black
Draw the juice from some fine ripe black currants. In order to do this, put them, as we have told already (see CURRANT CUSTARD), into an earthen jar, cover this closely, put it in a pan of cold water, and boil the fruit gently until the juice is expressed. Strain it through a jelly-bag, but do not press it, and boil it for a minute or two. Add three-quarters of a pound of sugar to every pint of juice, and boil ten minutes longer. If the jelly becomes firm when a spoonful is put on a plate it is boiled enough; if not, boil a little longer. Put it into small jars and cover closely, first with brandied papers and afterwards with gummed tissuepaper. If a larger proportion of sugar were added it would jelly sooner, but it would then be too luscious to be agreeable in sickness. If the juice is not pressed from the currants, the latter, with the addition of a little sugar and water, will boil into a jam fit to be used for kitchen and nursery puddings, but it will not keep long. Probable cost of currants, 4d. per quart. About one pint of juice may be obtained from two quarts of fruit.
A straightforward high-pectin jelly whose only real complications are the Victorian juice-extraction method and the paper covering. Blackcurrants are rich in both pectin and acid, so this sets readily without added pectin.
- The jar-in-a-pan methodThe currants go into a covered stoneware or heatproof glass jar which stands in a pan of water brought to a gentle boil — an improvised double boiler that draws juice without scorching. An hour or so at a bare simmer, with the water topped up, will do it. A covered saucepan over low heat with a few tablespoons of water works as well and faster.
- Do not press the bagThis is the hinge. Squeezing the jelly bag forces pulp and fine solids through and gives cloudy jelly. Hang it and let it drip, however long that takes, and accept the lower yield.
- Sugar ratioThree-quarters of a pound to the pint is roughly 340 g sugar to 570 ml juice, or about 600 g per litre. That is deliberately lean by preserving standards; expect a softer set and a shorter shelf life than a pound-to-the-pint jelly.
- The plate testChill the plate first, drop on a spoonful, wait half a minute and push it with a fingertip. If it wrinkles it is done. A thermometer reading 105C/220F is the same information more quickly.
- Ten minutes is a guide, not a ruleBoiling time depends on pan width and how much water is in the juice. Boil hard and uncovered, skim the foam, and judge by the set rather than the clock — overboiled blackcurrant jelly turns dark and tastes of caramel.
- Covering the jars"Brandied papers" are discs of paper soaked in spirit laid on the hot surface to discourage mould, with gummed tissue over the top as a dust cover. Neither is a seal. Use sterilised jars and proper lids, and refrigerate after opening; a jelly with this little sugar will not keep indefinitely in a cupboard under paper.
- YieldTwo quarts of fruit give about a pint of juice, which with the sugar makes roughly three small jars — a little over a pound of jelly. Scale by juice volume, not fruit weight.
- The leftover pulpThe book is right that the drained fruit will cook down into a rough jam, and right that it will not keep. Treat it as something to eat within a week from the refrigerator.
Cassell's puts this among the invalid cookery as much as the preserves: the remark that a sweeter jelly would be "too luscious to be agreeable in sickness" places it in the Victorian sickroom, where blackcurrant jelly stirred into hot water was a familiar drink for sore throats and feverish children. The association predates any understanding of vitamin C, though blackcurrants happen to be among the richest common sources of it, which is why they were pressed into national service as a syrup for British children during the Second World War. Blackcurrants were chiefly a garden and market fruit in Britain, though the plant also grows wild there; at fourpence a quart they were cheap enough to be worth boiling down in quantity. In the United States they were far scarcer, cultivation having been restricted in many states from the early twentieth century because the plants host white pine blister rust.