What are Preserved Fruit Products?

Fruit products are preserved by sugar and include jellied products, fruit butters, honeys and syrups. The sugar preserves the product by preventing micro-organism growth. The individual characteristics of different preserved fruit products depends on the type of fruit, preparation method, and ingredient proportions used:

Product Types

Jellies - gelled fruit juice and sugar, fruity tasting
Jams - thick, sweet spreads made of fruit pieces and sugar
Preserves - small uniform size fruit pieces in slightly gelled syrup
Conserves - like jam, but with nuts, raisins or coconut
Marmalades - soft jellies with small pieces of fruit or peel and citrus
Fruit butters - sweet thick-consistency spreads made with fruit pulp
Honeys and syrups - generally liquid consistency, made with fruit pulp or juice

Primary Product Ingredients

Fruit - provides flavor, color, pectin, acid
Pectin - causes the fruit to gel
Acid - adds flavor, necessary for gelling
Sugar - adds flavor, right proportion required for gelling

How Do I Make Preserved Fruit Products?

Steps

Explanation

1. Choose your guide

Site: NCFHP's Making Jams and Jellies
Publication: Jams, Jellies, and Other Fruit Spreads
Book: Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving

2. Select product and
recipe

		Marmalades	Butters
Jellies	Jams	(powdered pectin)	Conserves
(no pectin added) Apple Jelly Blackberry Jelly Crabapple Jelly Plum Jelly (liquid pectin) Blackberry Jelly Cherry Jelly Grape Jelly Mulberry Jelly Plum Jelly Strawberry Jelly Strawberry-Rhubarb (powdered pectin) Blackberry Jelly Cherry Jelly Grape Jelly Grape-Plum Jelly Mulberry Jelly Plum Jelly Strawberry Jelly	(no pectin added) Apricot Jam Berry Jam Blueberry-Currant Jam Blueberry-Peach Jam Fig Jam Grape Jam Plum Jam Plum Jam II (liquid pectin) Blackberry Jam Cherry Jam Fig Jam Ginger-Peach Jam Peach Jam Peach-Ginger Jam Plum Jam Strawberry Jam Strawberry-Fig Strawberry-Rhubarb	Berry Jam Blackberry Jam Blueberry-Spice Jam Cherry Jam Peach Jam Plum Jam Strawberry Jam Tomato Spiced Jam	Apple Conserve Apricot-Orange Cranberry Conserve Damson Plum-Orange Grape Conserve Plum Conserve
		Apple Marmalade Cranberry Marmalade Peach-Orange Marmalade Tomato Marmalade	Apple Butter Blueberry Butter Cherry Butter Peach Butter Pear Butter
		Preserves	Honeys and Syrups
		Fig Preserves Pear Preserves Plum Preserves Strawberry Preserves Watermelon Rind Preserves	Blueberry Syrup Fruit Syrups and Honeys Syrup, for preserving fruit

3. Store properly

Recommended storing practices