Black currant - one of the few products that surprisingly combines healthy and taste. And, what is especially interesting, as a piece, this berry is even tastier than fresh. Each housewife probably has their own recipes for currant jam. Below are the most original ones.
No cooking
Perhaps the most valuable thing in black currants is ascorbic acid (vitamin C). Say more, currant takes the third place after the wild rose and red Bulgarian pepper in the content of this valuable element. But it is ascorbic acid that endures heat treatment the worst.
Not only black, but also red, white and golden currant has useful properties.
Important! In the process of cooking and subsequent sterilization irrevocably lost from 30 to 90% of vitamin C.Luckily, there is a simple secret how to cook currant jam without cooking. The fact is that the role of a preservative, which will preserve the berries and protect them from the destructive effects of microbes, can kill sugar and acid in ordinary recipes using prolonged exposure to high temperatures. And in the berries of black currant own acid is enough for "natural preservation", so that in addition to the preparation of lemon juice or citric acid, as in other recipes, in this case is not even necessary.
But here sugar can not be sorry in no case, because in this case it plays a role not so much a taste as a practical one. The amount of sugar by weight must be two times greater than the number of the fruits themselves. You can risk reducing this ratio to a ratio of 1: 1.5 and even 1: 1, but in this case, you need to store the ready-made “vitamin preparation”, first, in the refrigerator, and second, try to use it as quickly as possible (in any case , until spring, it risks not to stand). 
Freshly harvested fruits (you can, along with the twigs) are washed, then laid out on a paper towel and let dry completely, occasionally turning over so that the water does not stagnate in some areas.
Then carefully clean the currant from the green twigs and dark "tails" on the top of each fruit.
The preparation of the berries is identical for all recipes, in the future we will not repeat.
Pour berries with sugar, mix well, then pass the mixture through a meat grinder (you can use a blender). 
Important! The resulting mixture is not laid out immediately on the banks, and pour into an enamel or glass container, cover with a clean towel and leave for 48 hours in the refrigerator. Stir every few hours. Sugar and fruits should be "friends" as they should.After the specified period, lay out the "live jam" on the banks, previously washed and boiled or aged over steam. Leave about 3 cm free to the top of the jar, then pour the sugar to the top.
Banks are covered with plastic covers, on top we seal the parchment and tie it around the circumference with a rope.
The stock is ready. The recipe is good not only because it retains all the healthy components of currants - such jam looks very nice and smells like fresh berries. True, you have to pay for everything: since the sugar content in such a jam is very high, using it in large quantities can bring health not good, but rather harm. 
Five minutes
Many housewives do not want to make blackcurrant jam, because they consider this a very troublesome task. Indeed, regardless of the recipe, the very procedure of collecting and subsequent cleaning of these fruits takes a lot of time and effort: first, a bunch of them breaks off from a rather prickly bush, then each berry must be separated from it, and the tail must also be cut off. All right, but there is a recipe in which, after all the preparatory work has been done, you will have to perform just a few simple manipulations - and an excellent preparation for the winter is ready.
Cooked such a jam in one go, and collect the foam in the cooking process is not necessary. So the recipe is ideal for working hostesses who have only two days a week to harvest and recycle it completely. 
On 1 kg of the prepared fruits of currant it will be required 1,5 kg of sugar and about half a glass of water.
At the bottom of the copper or enamelware pour some water, pour sugar, stir and melt on the fire, stirring constantly. When the syrup boils, we fall asleep entirely the fruits of black currant and, not forgetting to stir, bring to a boil. We remove the fire to a minimum and mark five minutes (all the time interfere).
After a while, we pour the jam into prepared glass jars, roll up the lids, turn it upside down, cover with a towel and leave to cool completely. 
The recipe for making jam, "five minutes" for the winter is good because, in addition to the small amount of time, due to the minimal heat treatment of currants do not have time to go nutrients (Vitamin C in it will, of course, be less than in the "cold" preparation, but still the losses will be insignificant). However, as in the previous case, it is difficult to call such a diet product.
In the multicooker
This original way of harvesting black currants will suit those happy housewives who have got a fashionable gadget called "multicooker" and are engaged in an exciting activity on the study of its capabilities.
Unfortunately, serious reserves for the winter in such a way to make problematic (the bowl at your disposal is limited to a given volume, and the grandmother’s basin cannot be used at all), but as an experiment you can easily prepare a few jars of excellent jam. 
Prepared berries are poured with sugar in the proportion of 1: 1, mix, put in the fridge overnight (currants should make juice, but never ferment), pour multicookers into the bowl in the morning, set the "Soup" or "Quenching" mode (depends on device brand), cover the lid, cook 60 minutes. During this time we are preparing banks. We pour the finished hot jam into hot cans and roll up the lids.
In principle, the multicooker allows you to make jam according to any recipe, not limited to the above. It should only be borne in mind that the finished product may be a little more liquid than you are used to. The fact is that the water in the process of cooking in such a device evaporates is not as intense as when cooked on a familiar stove or on an open fire. Therefore, water that is present in the list of ingredients for most jam recipes can not be added when using a multicooker. 
Important! Most users of the gadget recommend to completely remove the steam valve when cooking jam in a slow cooker, otherwise it foams and escapes.For the same reason, do not fill the thicket to the top, ideally use no more than 25% of its volume!
With cooking (simple recipe)
Of course, the most delicious blackcurrant jam is obtained from berries, grated through a sieve. Air homogeneous mass without a single bone - the dream of any sweet tooth! Alas, not everyone can afford such an option for preparations for the winter, this procedure is too laborious. If you have a huge harvest, and there is not enough time to recycle it, you can use a very simple recipe, and the result will be quite good. 
Important! The berries should be ripe, but not overripe, because according to the technology, they will boil water before cooking, so too soft fruits will immediately burst and lose the juice.Fill the prepared fruit to the top with cold purified water so that it completely covers the berries. Drain the water in a separate saucepan and bring to a boil. Now pour the currants again, this time with boiling water, bring the water and berries to the boil, remove the fire to the minimum, and after a couple of minutes quickly throw the fruit back into a colander. Water, drained from the berries, leave!
Pour into the prepared enameled ware water in which berries were blanched, at the rate of two or three glasses per kilogram of berries (depending on whether thick or more liquid jam you prefer), mix with a kilogram of sugar per kilogram of currants, bring to a boil and cook on low heat until the syrup brightens. Now we merge about a third of the syrup into a separate bowl, add berries to the remaining syrup and cook, stirring for about 15-20 minutes. In conclusion, we pour in the syrup that has been drained earlier, bring the jam to a boil, put it into sterile jars, roll it up and let it cool down.
This method accelerates the gelation of berries, and the jam is beautiful and tasty with minimal effort.
Jelly
Usually with the word "jelly" we imagine a mass, made from berries, sugar, water and gelatin, appetizingly trembling on a plate. However, black currant has the unique property of gelling without adding this sticky substance of animal origin.
Did you know? In addition to gelatin, the gelling process in cooking is provided by two less well-known additives - pectin and agar-agar. Raw materials for gelatin are cartilage, veins, bones and animal skin, agargbutR made from seaweed, and pectin is extracted from well-known to us vegetables and fruits, in particular, from the rind of citrus, sugar beet and - bingo! - black currant.
So, in the black currant there is everything to cook jelly without all sorts of additional thickeners. In addition to fruits, need only sugar and water.
Important! Hybrid varieties of berries are poorly suited for making jelly, because the pectins (of those same gelling components) contain much less than in the thoroughbred.Immediately make a reservation. You can make jelly in a much simpler way, with less cost and loss. This option is for real perfectionists.
So, currant berries in the classic jelly recipe are related to sugar and water in the ratio 2: 1: 1. 
Pour the prepared fruit into a container prepared for cooking, pour it with water and boil with constant stirring, then boil for another ten minutes at minimum heat, then pour it over a colander.
Now need squeeze currant juice - This is the most laborious part of the work. First, carefully wipe the fruit through a sieve, thus getting rid of the skin and bones. In essence, it is possible to stop at this stage, but in the classical recipe it is proposed to squeeze the mashed potatoes through several layers of gauze so that the main part of the pulp is also ruthlessly removed.
Important! Pulp and cake from this recipe will not be reused. If the juice was squeezed out of raw berries, such waste would be great for making vitamin compote, but in this case, all that could be, the berry has already given.Proceed to the next stage - boiling. We need the juice volume to be reduced by at least a quarter as a result of languishing on a slow fire.
When the moment comes, we begin gradually, in a glass, to add sugar to the juice. After each portion, stir the liquid until the sugar is completely dissolved, and only then add the next part.
We pour the finished syrup into hot sterile jars, after which we put them in a pot of boiling water (do not forget to put gauze or towel on the bottom so that the jars do not burst), cover and sterilize: 1-liter jars - 15 minutes, half-liter - two times less .
Now you can roll banks. After they have cooled down completely, to complete the gelling process, the jars should be placed in the refrigerator for seven days, and only after that should they be put in a regular cupboard or storage room until winter.
Familiarize yourself with the best ways to harvest lingonberries, strawberries, sea buckthorn, mountain ash (chokeberry), blackberry, sunberry, hawthorn, Physalis, blueberries, apples, yoshta, cherry, viburnum, cranberries, apricots and gooseberries.
With dried apricots
We considered several options for black currant jam. But it so happens that at the same time you have a ripe crop of several crops, and you are puzzled about what to prepare. Or just currant jam seems too boring to you. In this case, you can prepare a more complex version of the blanks for the winter, where currants will be the main, but not the only ingredient. This option is sure to enjoy housewives who love culinary experiments and, perhaps, push on other, no less interesting ideas.
The first combination - with dried apricots. In this recipe, you can even use overripe currant, the result is no harm. 
Per kilogram of berries will need 1.2 kg of sugar and a small handful (up to 100 g) of dried apricots.
Fill the dried apricots with boiling water before swelling, then drain and squeeze the apricots.
We pass through the meat grinder the prepared fruits of both kinds. 
Fill the fruit puree with sugar, mix and leave for a few hours until complete dissolution. Stir the mixture if necessary.
Read about the beneficial and healing properties of apricot.Now - two options. You can decompose the resulting mass into sterile jars without cooking, using the technology described above for making "live jam", but you will need to store such a product in the refrigerator, and you can boil it for 15-20 minutes and roll it up. In the first case we preserve vitamins and flavor but in the second we receive preparation for longer storage.
With pumpkin
The recipe is good because it assumes a minimal amount of sugar, because the pumpkin is sweet enough by itself.
Did you know? Pumpkin in moderation is not only possible, but also necessary for people suffering from diabetes, both of the first and second types, because this vegetable (which some people mistakenly call fruit for some reason) helps the pancreas to produce natural insulin.
Per kilogram of currant berries, we need only 300 g of sugar, 1.2 kg of peeled pumpkin and a small piece (about 30 g) of butter.
Find out the useful and healing properties of pumpkin.In a skillet, melt the butter, then lay out the berries, finely chopped pumpkin and sugar, bring to a boil and cook on low heat for 20 minutes. The foam which forms on the surface is carefully removed.
We decompose ready jam in in advance prepared banks. We roll covers.
Lemon
In this recipe, the usual currant jam begins to play with new notes thanks to a very minor addition.
For every kilogram of fruit we need one medium-sized lemon. Sahara - 1 kg 200 g 
Skip the berries through a meat grinder, add sugar, beat (in the presence of a stationary blender, both operations are combined into one). Carefully bring the mixture to a boil, stirring with a wooden spoon, reduce the heat and cook for a quarter of an hour. Lemon with the skin cut into small slices or dice - as you like - and add to the jam. We continue to simmer over low heat for another quarter of an hour, then lay them in clean jars and leave to cool (do not need to cover with lids at this stage so that the condensate that forms does not drip into the jam).
Check out the useful and dangerous properties of lemon.While the delicacy cools down, cut into circles paper with a diameter of about 5 cm larger than the diameter of the neck of the cans. The same circles are cut from cling film. When the jam has cooled to room temperature, we cork the jars as follows: first put a paper circle soaked in vodka on top, cover with a film on top and tightly drag it with a string.
Orange
Another option currant-citrus jam can be cooked without cooking. It remains only to imagine what a slaughter dose of vitamin C will result in, given that citrus fruits, like currants, are extremely rich in ascorbic acid, and all of it will be completely preserved in the finished product!
For a change, instead of a lemon, we take an orange, also with skin. The proportions of orange and currant can be varied, but the main component should still be a berry, citrus should only shade the basic taste. 
We skip the berries through a meat grinder and an orange cut into slices. Add sugar - two parts per part of fruit puree (if you use lemon - you can add a little more sugar). Mix well and incubate for 48 hours in the refrigerator. We put them in cans using the technology of "live jam" (do not forget to put the sugar on top of the mixture, it will also preserve the product).
Raspberries
Raspberries and black currants usually ripen at our cottages at the same time, so their combination looks quite natural. Currant and raspberry take a ratio of 2: 1 (you can adjust the proportion to taste). Sugar will need 1.2-1.5 kg for each kilogram of fruit mix. Water - about half a cup. 
We mix in a cooking tank the prepared berries, water and half the prescribed amount of sugar. Gently bring to a boil, cook for five minutes.After that, add the remaining sugar, stir it constantly, so that it dissolves faster, and the jam does not burn, and even after five minutes we put the finished product in cans, roll it up and let it cool down.
Read about the healing properties and use of raspberries.If you are puzzled over what to cook black currant for the winter, use our ideas. Do not limit yourself to strict adherence to the recipe, improvise, because a good housewife is not the one who knows a lot of recipes, but one who can create a masterpiece of everything that was found in her fridge or grew on a bed. Black currant - very grateful raw materials for any experiments. To spoil this product is almost impossible!
