Blackcurrant jam substitutes

Clear, firm, tart jelly made from strained red currant juice, a standard European sauce ingredient.

Best for

duck and venison sauces, Cumberland sauce, lamb, pan sauces, glazes, Linzer cookies

The best functional match, because it is the same family of fruit doing the same job of sharpening a rich sauce. It melts cleanly into a pan sauce, gives the same glossy body, and carries the same bracing tartness. The differences are colour and depth: red currant jelly is bright translucent red where blackcurrant is inky, and it lacks the musky, almost tannic aroma that makes blackcurrant distinctive, so a venison sauce made with it tastes cleaner and simpler. It is also seedless and smooth, which is a plus in a sauce and a minus in a filled cookie.

Dark seeded or seedless blackberry jam, widely available and similar in colour.

Best for

toast, Victoria sponge, thumbprints, Linzer bars, duck sauce, cheese boards

The closest thing most supermarkets stock, and visually almost identical, so a cake or a cookie filled with it looks right. Blackberry is sweeter and rounder than blackcurrant and does not have that puckering sharpness, so a pan sauce made with it can taste flat against duck or game. A teaspoon of lemon juice or red wine vinegar per quarter cup fixes most of that. Seeded jam gives a slightly gritty crunch, which nobody minds on toast but which shows up in a smooth sauce, so sieve it if you can.

Blackcurrant liqueur, which carries the true blackcurrant flavour, combined with a jam for body.

Best for

duck sauce, venison and game sauces, pan sauces, poached fruit, dessert sauces, glazes

The best reconstruction available and the answer if the blackcurrant flavour is what the dish is actually about. Cassis is made from blackcurrants, so it supplies the exact aroma that no other jam has, while the jam supplies the thickness and set that liqueur alone cannot. Simmer the cassis for a minute or two first so the alcohol cooks off, otherwise the sauce tastes boozy and thin. Note it does add sweetness, so cut any sugar in the recipe and finish with lemon juice or vinegar to keep the sauce from turning syrupy.

Dark, tart jam from damsons or Italian prune plums, common in British and Central European kitchens.

Best for

Linzer bars, toast, sachertorte glaze, meat glazes, filled buns, steamed puddings

A genuinely good baking swap, since damson jam shares blackcurrant's dark colour and sharp finish. It is stone fruit rather than berry, so the flavour is winier and slightly almond-like rather than musky and green, and ordinary sweet plum jam is markedly milder than damson and will read as simply sweet. Where this swap shows least is under a strong pastry such as a nut-based Linzer dough; where it shows most is in a sauce, where the missing berry aroma is noticeable.

Dark sweet cherry jam or preserves, sharpened with lemon to compensate for the lower acidity.

Best for

duck sauce, cheesecake topping, thumbprints, cake fillings, pork glaze, toast

Right colour, right depth, wrong acidity, which the lemon largely solves. Cherry and blackcurrant sit close together as flavours for rich meat, so a duck sauce made with cherry jam and lemon is excellent, just sweeter and more mellow with a faint marzipan note instead of that green-leaf tartness. In desserts it needs no correction at all. If the recipe was relying on blackcurrant to cut through cream or fat, add the lemon and taste again before serving.

Frozen blackcurrants, which are far easier to find than the jam in the United States, simmered with sugar.

Best for

any recipe where blackcurrant flavour is the point, sauces, fillings, toast, coulis

If you can find the fruit, this is the real thing and it takes fifteen minutes. Simmer the frozen currants with about half their weight in sugar and a tablespoon of water until they burst and the mixture thickens, then push it through a sieve if you want it smooth. Blackcurrants are extremely high in natural pectin, so it sets readily without any added pectin and can go stiff if you overcook it; stop when a spoonful wrinkles on a cold plate. Keep it in the fridge and use within two weeks. If you intend to can it for the pantry, follow a tested recipe from the National Center for Home Food Preservation without altering the sugar or acid.