What are Jams, Jellies, Marmalades, Fruit Butters, . . .

Today, preserves are about more than just making it through the winter. Creating unusual flavor combinations is also part of the fun. Add a kick of heat, a touch of tartness, something boozy, herbal, or spiced, and preserves become a little more exciting. Store shelves these days offer a daunting array of small-batch products. But as you stare at the aisles of jellies, jams, conserves, and compotes, do you know what defines one type of preserves from another? It all comes down to the kind of fruit that's used, the way the product is prepared, and the proportions of different ingredients.

Jelly is made from strained fruit juice, so fruits with high pectin content like apples, crabapples, grapes, currants, and gooseberries are commonly used. Other fruits can be juiced and combined with these to create flavorful jellies.
Jam, on the other hand, uses mashed or crushed fruit, so fruits like strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, apricots, and plums are frequently used. Fruits that are easily mashed or pureed are ideal.
Preserves: Fruits with firm flesh that hold their shape well when cooked are often chosen for preserves. Examples include apricots, cherries, peaches, plums, and strawberries (sometimes halved or quartered).
Citrus fruits, including their rinds, are used to make marmalade, which is a type of preserve.
Fruit Butters: Apple butter is one of the most popular and widely made fruit butters. Pears are another excellent choice for fruit butters, often used alongside apples. Peaches, plums, and apricots are frequently used for making fruit butters, with their natural sweetness and soft texture being ideal.

Preserves

The word preserves is often used as an umbrella for all sorts of fruit spreads preserved in sugar.

When talking about the types of preserved fruit such as jams and jellies, though, people use the term to refer to preserved whole fruit, such as with whole cherry or strawberry preserves, or fruit cut into large uniform sized pieces. The fruit can be stored in jelly or a thick syrup. The storage liquid is typically clear-ish and is sometimes slightly gelled using pectin. The fruit maintains its shape during cooking and should be tender and plump. In jams, the fruit is mashed with sugar. This results in a chunkier consistency for preserves compared to the smoother texture of jam.

Use it: Throw these bad boys on some vanilla ice cream, waffles, or warm chocolate cake.

Jam

This is what English muffins were made for. Jam consists of fruit that's crushed or chopped and cooked with sugar (and sometimes pectin and an acid) until the pieces of fruit are soft and lose their shape. As the mixture cooks, water evaporates and it thickens to a spreadable consistency, though it still may have some pieces of fruit. How gelled, or firm, the jam becomes depends on the fruit’s naturally occurring pectin or on any additional (usually powdered) pectin, which is incorporated during the cooking process. Depending on the fruit and how it was cut, the final product can be completely smooth or chunky with smaller, jammy pieces of fruit throughout. It should always be firm enough to spread and soft enough to spoon. Sugar acts as the primary preservative.

The FDA has a whole bunch of rules that determine which products can be legally labeled as jam. If you're starting with berries, tomatoes, oranges, or pineapples, the ratio must be 47 parts by weight fruit to 55 parts sugar. If you're starting with stone fruit, currants, guava, or gooseberries, the ration must be 45 parts fruit to 55 parts sugar. That fruit quantity refers to the weight of the fruit that's already been pitted, seeded, and skinned. Since the fruit also contributes natural sugars to the equation, the FDA requires a "soluble solids test," which essentially tests the sugar content using a handy dandy tool known as a refractometer. If you're planning on turning your jam hobby into a business, any jam you want to label 'jam' must have not less than 65% soluble solids. But, if you're makin' jam for breakfast tomorrow, just do what tastes right to you.

Use it: Try spreading blueberry lavender jam between layers of lemon cake, or think savory with a smear of tomato jam for a kick of sweet acidity on a grilled cheese sandwich. This red plum jam is excellent with beignets.

Jelly

The primary difference between jam and jelly is that jelly is strained to remove the fruit solids for a gem-like clarity. Jelly is translucent and gelatinous. To get that bright, crystal-clear consistency, most fruits are crushed and cooked to extract their juice. The mixture is strained through a jelly bag, which is made of a fine mesh fabric that ensures that no fruit particles slip through.

Jelly is often made only from the juice of fruits that aren’t suitable for making jam because they have unpleasantly textured skins or large, inedible, hard-to-remove seeds, like those in Concord grapes. Also often for apples/crabapples, especially if you would like to use that as a relatively neutral base for mint jelly, jalapeño jelly, etc. Powdered pectin is sometimes added during the cooking process to help the liquid set into a firmer, wobbly texture.

If you want to DIY it, use a metal strainer with several layers of cheesecloth. Since dry fabric absorbs flavor from the juice, the jelly bag (or cheesecloth) should be moistened first with cold water, then wrung out to get rid of any excess moisture. After straining, the juice is boiled rapidly with sugar (and sometimes pectin) so that when it sets, it holds its shape. Jelly is typically firmer than jam, but not so firm that it's gummy-like. According to government regulations, jelly must contain at least 55% fruit juice.

Use it: Jellies are perfect slathered over French toast, or if you're feeling classic, make a variation of PB&J using non-traditional flavors like pomegranate jelly and cashew butter.

Conserves

Jams made from a mixture of various fruits are called conserves. Basically, all conserves are jams, but not all jams are conserves. Make sense? Conserves usually contain fruit mixed together with sugar and sometimes nuts and dried fruits.

Use it: Make biscuits or English muffins and spread them with conserves.

Compote

Compote can be made with fresh or dried fruit (whole or cut into pieces) that's slowly cooked in a sugar syrup (sometimes containing liquor and spices). Slow cooking is important for the fruit to maintain its shape.

The Culinary Institute of America considers compote to be one of two types of fruit sauce: there's coulis, made with smooth, pureed fruit and then there's compote, which is a chunky mixture. While preserves and conserves are typically jarred, compotes are often (although not always) made and used immediately as a component of a dish. Compote applications can be either sweet or savory.

Use it: Pile some compote onto a stack of pancakes, or serve it alongside duck confit or a seared duck breast... or foie gras.

Marmalade

The word marmalade was derived from the Greek melimelon, which referred to quince stored in honey. Today, marmalade is a soft jelly that contains pieces of fruit rind (usually citrus). Marmalades have both a sweet and sour flavor, and the rind of the fruit imparts a mild bitterness. Although cooked rinds become tender, they maintain their structure, giving the spread a distinct candy-like bite.

Not only do we use citrus peel for marmalade because it contains high amounts of flavorful and aromatic oils, but the peel also contains very high levels of pectin. In fact, when commercially manufactured pectin is not derived from apples, it is often made from citrus. As a result of citrus peel's naturally high pectin content, marmalades rarely require additional pectin.

There are several ways to make marmalade, some more time-consuming than others. But, in all of them, the fruit (rind, pith, fruit and/or peel) is simmered in water to soften then cooked with sugar to thicken. Here, too, how you prepare the fruit plays a role: Your end result can be lightly textured and clear, almost jellylike, or more gelatinous with larger, thicker pieces of softened rind throughout. Marmalade is best made with oranges, grapefruit, lemon or kumquats. (Limes are too bitter and not quite juicy enough.) You typically do not need gelatin to make marmalade. Marmalade gets its setting and texture from the natural pectin found in citrus fruits, particularly the peel, and the high sugar content.

Use it: Marmalade, whether it's made from lemon, tangerine, or other fruit, gives breakfast a little boost, balancing the butteriness of a scone or other pastry with tartness. Marmalade also makes a great glaze for cured meats like baked ham.

Fruit Butter

Unlike jellies, jams, and marmalades, fruit butter is not jellied. Instead, butters rely on the fruit's natural body to create thickness—the fruit pulp is cooked with sugar for a longer period of time in order to achieve a dense texture (longer cooking means more moisture evaporation!) Fruits containing less moisture to begin with (like apples and pears) lend themselves to making deeply flavored butters.

According to FDA rules, products labeled 'fruit butter' must be made from these eight fruits: apples, apricots, grapes, peaches, pears, plums, prunes, and quince.

Use it: Whether you go for classic apple butter, pumpkin butter, or something a little different, fruit butters are great on graham crackers or spooned over yogurt.