Home › C › Currant Jelly, White
Currant Jelly, White
INGREDIENTS.-White currants; to every pint of juice allow 3/4 lb. of good loaf sugar. AVERAGE COST, 8d. to 10d. per pot.
Pick the currants from the stalks, and put them into a jar; place this jar in a saucepan of boiling water, and simmer until the juice is well drawn from the fruit, which will be in from to 1 hour. Then strain the currants through a fine cloth or jeily-bag; do not squeeze them too much, or the jelly will not be clear, and put the juice into a very clean preserving-pan, with the sugar. Let this simmer gently over a clear fire until it is firm, and keep stirring and skimming until it is done; then pour it into small pots, cover them, and store away in a dry place.
TIME. hour to draw the juice, 1/2 hour to boil the jelly.
SEASONABLE in July and August.
A high-pectin fruit jelly that needs almost no intervention beyond patience and a clean cloth. The two things that decide whether it works are how you extract the juice and how you judge the set.
- Do not squeeze the bagThis is the hinge of the recipe. Pressing the pulp forces fine solids through the cloth and the jelly turns cloudy and never fully clears. Let it drip, however long it takes, and accept the lower yield.
- The jar in a saucepanThis is a water bath, not a canning step. A heatproof bowl or jar set in simmering water draws the juice gently without scorching the fruit; a covered saucepan set on a heat diffuser does the same job. Reckon 45 minutes to an hour, until the currants have collapsed and gone pale.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined sugar sold in a cone and broken up for use, valued because it was cleaner than the brown sugars of the day and threw less scum. Ordinary granulated or preserving sugar is the modern equivalent; the latter has larger crystals and dissolves with less stirring.
- The sugar ratioThree-quarters of a pound to a pint of juice is roughly 340 g to 570 ml, lower than the pound-for-pint most modern jelly recipes use. White currants are rich in pectin and acid, so it will usually set, but the finished jelly is softer and keeps less well than a full-sugar preserve.
- Judging "firm"Mrs Beeton's half hour is a guide, not a rule. Work to the setting point instead: 105C/220F on a sugar thermometer, or a spoonful chilled on a cold saucer that wrinkles when pushed. Currant juice can reach that in 8 to 10 minutes at a hard boil.
- "Simmer gently over a clear fire"A clear fire meant one burnt down past the smoking stage, giving steady heat. In practice you want a fairly brisk boil, not a simmer, in a wide pan; slow evaporation dulls the pale colour that is the whole point of white currant jelly.
- Covering and storageSmall pots covered with paper or wax and kept in a dry larder were a nineteenth-century compromise. Use hot sterilised jars with two-piece lids, or treat it as a fridge preserve and eat it within a couple of months.
- YieldAbout 1 kg of picked currants should give somewhere near a pint of juice. The finished quantity depends on how long the fruit is left to drip and how far the jelly is boiled down, so treat any jar count as approximate.
- Finding the fruitWhite currants are an albino form of the redcurrant, sold briefly in July and August at farmers' markets and pick-your-own farms and rarely in supermarkets. Redcurrants substitute exactly in method, though the jelly is no longer white.
White currants appear in Victorian preserve chapters partly for their colour; the flavour is milder and less sharp than a redcurrant's. A pale, almost transparent jelly is likely to have been read as evidence of skill: it meant the juice had been dripped rather than pressed, the sugar was well refined, and the scum had been taken off diligently. A colourless jelly could also be served with delicate meats, creams and pastries without staining them. The costing of eightpence to tenpence a pot is characteristic of Mrs Beeton's approach throughout the book, which treated household accounting as inseparable from cookery, and the note that the fruit is seasonable in July and August is a reminder that currants do not travel or store well.