currant

Everyday

1. A small dried black grape without seeds, used in cakes, buns and puddings. tree →
2. A small round berry that grows in bunches on a bush: blackcurrant, redcurrant, whitecurrant. tree →

In the lessons

In cooking, currants go in currant buns, Eccles cakes, spotted dick and Christmas pudding. In the nursery rhyme «Five currant buns in a baker's shop», and in maths problems with buns, currants can be counted. In Alice in Wonderland, Alice finds a little cake marked EAT ME «in currants». Blackcurrant juice is popular in the UK.

Examples

• Five currant buns in a baker's shop, round and fat with a sugar on the top. tree →
• The cake had «EAT ME» written on it in currants. tree →
• We picked redcurrants in the garden. tree →
• Blackcurrants are full of vitamin C. tree →
• Put a handful of currants into the scone mixture. tree →
• Each bun has 8 currants; how many currants are in 5 buns? tree →
• She bought a loaf of brown bread and five currant buns. tree →

Note

Homophone trap: currant (fruit) and current (flow of water or electricity; or «now»). Currant has -ant like «ant in the cake».