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Flower jelly turns a basket of fresh blossoms into a shelf of bright, fragrant preserves that taste like the season they came from, whether you set them in a water bath canner for the pantry or keep them in the fridge as a quick refrigerator preserve. Once you learn the basic method, almost any edible flower in your yard or along your foraging routes becomes fair game, and a Sunday morning slice of toast in February can taste like a spring afternoon.
This recipe has been reviewed for safety and accuracy by a Master Food Preserver certified through the University of Cornell Cooperative Extension.
I make dozens of types of jam and jelly each year, but the flower jellies are always the ones my daughter looks forward to most. She finds magic in edible flowers, and I can’t blame her, because they really are something special.
While I’ll occasionally get a few complaints about harvesting gallons of blueberries for blueberry jelly, I get nothing but smiles and excitement when it’s time to gather a basket of flowers for floral jelly. Skipping around in sandals and a unicorn dress, my little one is in heaven out there, and there’s something about her excitement that makes me want to make batch after batch, sampling every blossom in the yard.
That experimenting is how this list grew the way it did. Almost every flower jelly on Creative Canning started with a walk around the homestead and a quart jar filling up with petals, and the recipes below are the ones that earned a permanent spot on our pantry shelves.
Edible Flower Safety
Before you make any flower jelly, be sure the blossoms you’re using are in fact edible flowers, because not every flower is a safe variety. Only use unsprayed flowers (no herbicides or pesticides) gathered from clean locations, which means skipping roadsides, drainage ditches, and any spot where pets or road spray might reach them. If you’re foraging wild blossoms, be one hundred percent sure of your identification before you try any new plant, since plenty of toxic flowers grow right alongside the edible ones.
Beyond identification, it’s always possible to react to a new food, so go easy the first time you try a blossom you’ve never eaten before rather than making a giant batch right out of the gate. Many flowers are medicinal as well as edible, and while the amount used in jelly generally isn’t considered a therapeutic dose, it’s worth making sure a flower’s actions don’t conflict with any health conditions you have. Hawthorn blossoms, for example, are used in blood pressure preparations, and violet blossoms are mildly diuretic, so do a bit of background research on whatever blossom you’ve chosen before you fill the canner.
How to Make Flower Jelly
The basic method for flower jelly is more or less the same no matter which blossom you start with. Each flower brings its own flavor, color, and character, but the underlying process of steeping a floral tea and setting it with pectin doesn’t change, which is exactly why this one technique unlocks the whole long list of recipes below. You can always add other spices, herbs, or a splash of fruit juice to customize a batch, and the steps stay the same regardless of how you dress it up.
Start by harvesting 2 to 4 cups of flower petals. For most flowers you want just the petals rather than the whole flower structure, which means harvesting a bit more of something like dandelions, where the blossoms are about half greens and stem once you pluck them. Clean the petals, removing any debris and anything that isn’t a fragrant petal, and aim for roughly 2 to 4 cups of loosely packed material. I usually measure them right into a quart mason jar, since it’s a convenient measure and the heatproof glass works well for the next step, which is making blossom tea.
Once you have about a quart of cleaned petals, pour boiling water over the top and let them infuse into a floral tea. A long steep pulls more flavor and color, so plan on at least an hour, or cover the jar and leave it in the refrigerator overnight (a few flowers, like spruce tips, prefer a shorter steep, and the individual recipes note those exceptions). While the water is extracting flavor, it’s also extracting color, and some flowers put out surprising shades. Bee balm makes a bright red tea, as you’d expect, while lilacs and violets make a blue-green tea even though the petals are pink or purple.
Don’t worry about that odd starting color, since it’s just the water pulling out antioxidants similar to the color compounds in blueberries and blackberries. When you add the lemon juice, the tea shifts to a bright pink or purple right in front of you, which is half the fun of making violet or lilac jelly in the first place.
Strain the petals out and measure your tea, adding a little water if you came up short of 4 cups. Pour the tea into a jam pot and add 1/4 cup of bottled lemon juice per 4 cups of tea. This is a change from the smaller amount you’ll see in a lot of older flower jelly recipes online, and it matters: a quarter cup of bottled lemon juice is what reliably drops the pH low enough to make flower jelly safe for canning. Use bottled lemon juice rather than fresh, because bottled has a standardized acidity that fresh lemons don’t, and don’t cut the amount back. If you’d rather not add a lemon note to the flavor, 1 teaspoon of citric acid stands in for the 1/4 cup of lemon juice.
Whisk a box of regular powdered pectin into the tea and lemon juice, then bring everything to a full rolling boil. I reach for regular Sure Jell for sweet flower jellies because it’s dependable and gives a clean, firm set (I’ve tried just about every pectin on the market over the years). Let the pectin mixture boil hard for a full minute before you add any sugar at all.
This part is the one to pay attention to. If you add the sugar before the pectin has dissolved and boiled, the pectin won’t set up, and a loose, syrupy jelly is one of the most common things that goes wrong. The pectin has to be whisked in and boiled for one minute on its own first, and only then do you add the sugar. (The other two usual culprits behind a jelly that won’t set are overcooking, meaning a hard boil that runs much past a few minutes, and oversized batches, so stick to a single batch and don’t try to double it.)
Once the pectin has boiled for a minute, add 5 cups of sugar all at once and stir to dissolve. Regular powdered pectin needs that much sugar to gel, and the 5 cups to 4 cups of liquid ratio is the current Sure Jell standard for a classic old-fashioned jelly that sets every time. Bring the mixture back to a full rolling boil and boil hard for exactly 1 minute, then pull it off the heat and skim off any foam.
Ladle the hot jelly into jars leaving 1/4 inch of headspace. Canning is optional, but if you’d like shelf-stable jars, process them in a water bath canner for 10 minutes, adjusting for your altitude. The lemon juice is what makes the jelly safe to can, so don’t skip it (and even if you’re making a refrigerator preserve, the lemon balances the flavor and the jelly isn’t the same without it). If you’re not canning, let the jars cool on the counter and then store them in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks or the freezer for up to 6 months, using straight-sided freezer-safe jars if you’re freezing.
Low Sugar Options
The recipe above uses regular pectin and full sugar for the most dependable set, but if you’d prefer a less sweet jelly, switch to Sure Jell low sugar pectin and reduce the sugar to as little as 1 to 2 cups. Lowering the sugar also lowers the yield, so expect a jar or two less than a full-sugar batch. If you’d like to use Pomona’s Universal Pectin, increase the lemon juice to 1/2 cup, since Pomona’s doesn’t contain the added citric acid that other pectins do.
Pomona’s is a two-part low sugar pectin with a calcium water activator that works a little differently from boxed pectin, so follow the mint jelly directions in the box, and it’s worth reading up on how to use Pomona’s pectin if it’s your first time working with it.
Flower Jelly Recipes
Using the basic method above, you can make jelly out of almost any edible flower. Be sure to remove the sepals, stems, and any green parts first, since those bits can turn a delicate floral jelly bitter. Some recipes also add a complementary ingredient to draw out a flavor that’s already in the flower, the way nasturtium jelly is sometimes made with a few Sichuan peppercorns to play up the blossom’s natural pepperiness.
Whether you follow a recipe to the letter or strike out on your own, the blossoms below will get you started. I’ve grouped them by where you’re likely to find them, from wild-foraged flowers to the ones blooming in the garden, plus a section of savory herbal jellies meant for the cheese board rather than the toast.
Wild & Foraged Flower Jellies
Some of the most rewarding flower jellies come from blossoms you don’t have to plant at all. Dandelions in the lawn, violets along the path, and redbud blooming at the wood’s edge are all free for the gathering, provided you’re harvesting from clean, unsprayed ground. Wild blossoms reward careful identification more than any other group here, so when a flower has a toxic look-alike, take the extra minute to be certain before you fill your basket.
These foraged jellies also tend to be the ones that surprise people, since a free weed turning into a honey-colored spread feels a little like alchemy. Several of them are seasonal in a way that makes the finished jar feel even more worth saving for the dead of winter.
Dandelion Jelly tastes like honey with a soft floral edge, and it has a natural golden color that brightens a piece of morning toast. It’s one of the ones my daughter asks for by name.
Wild Violet Jelly turns a stunning magenta the moment the lemon juice goes in, and it tastes startlingly like fresh spring berries, somewhere between blueberry and black raspberry.
Clover Jelly tastes like wildflower honey and works with white, red, or crimson clover blossoms, all of which grow wild in most lawns and fields.
Redbud Jelly has a light tart-sweet flavor and a pretty pink hue, and the same blossoms make a lovely syrup too if you skip the pectin.
Fireweed Jelly is a northern wild treat made from a plant that colonizes burned and disturbed ground much the way dandelions do, so it’s common where it grows.
Milkweed Flower Jelly captures the heavy, sweet fragrance of common milkweed blossoms in high summer, the same flowers the monarchs love.
Thistle Jelly turns the purple blooms of an aggressive weed into a mild, honey-sweet spread, which feels like sweet revenge on a plant that takes over a pasture.
Honeysuckle Jelly has a sweet, nectar-like flavor that tastes the way honeysuckle smells on a warm summer evening.
Kudzu Blossom Jelly turns the grape-scented blooms of that notorious climbing vine into a jelly with a flavor a little like grape bubblegum.
Garden Flower Jellies
The flowers already growing in your beds and borders make some of the prettiest jellies of all, and many of them need thinning or deadheading anyway, so a jelly batch puts those extra blooms to work. Lilacs, peonies, and roses carry their fragrance straight into the jar, while the milder garden flowers lean on their color and a touch of lemon to shine.
Cultivated flowers have one nice advantage over their wild cousins, which is that you know exactly what you planted and where it’s been. As long as you’ve grown them without pesticides, the guesswork around identification mostly disappears, and you can pick a handful of blooms on your way past the garden.
Lilac Jelly is the most intensely floral jelly I’ve made, and it tastes exactly like lilacs smell on a spring breeze. A jar of it in February is a small miracle.
Forsythia Jelly uses one of the earliest blooms of spring and carries a mild flavor with a faint hint of peach behind it.
Tulip Jelly has a subtle, almost herbal flavor and takes on the color of whatever petals you use, so you can make a whole rainbow of batches.
Pansy Jelly is mild and gentle in flavor, and the petals lend a soft, watercolor tint to the finished jar.
Peony Jelly captures the heady perfume of garden peonies in a delicate spread, and it’s a fine use for blooms that would otherwise drop in the first hard rain.
Grape Hyacinth Jelly has a mild, grape-like flavor from those tiny spring spikes (use only true grape hyacinth, since other hyacinths are toxic).
Rose Petal Jelly has a delicate floral flavor that’s lovely at teatime, and fragrant old-fashioned roses make the best of it.
Calendula Flower Jelly (and marigold jelly) sets up a sunny golden color with a mild, faintly herbal flavor.
Nasturtium Jelly carries a peppery kick from the edible blossoms, and it’s sometimes spiked with a few Sichuan peppercorns to play that pepperiness up.
Daylily Jelly has a mild, faintly sweet flavor from the abundant summer blooms, and one established clump gives you plenty to pick.
Borage Jelly tastes faintly of cucumber and comes from the cheerful blue, star-shaped flowers that bees can’t seem to leave alone.
Chamomile Jelly has a soothing, apple-like floral flavor, and you use the whole little flower head rather than just the petals.
Lavender Jelly has a soft, perfumed flavor that pairs beautifully with scones and an afternoon cup of tea.
Hibiscus Jelly delivers a tart, cranberry-like tang and a deep red color from dried hibiscus flowers.
Tree & Shrub Blossom Jellies
Flowering trees and shrubs throw off more blossoms than they could ever set as fruit, which means picking a basketful for jelly does the plant a small favor while it does you a big one. Fruit trees in particular benefit from a little blossom thinning, so an orchard in bloom is an open invitation to make jelly.
These blossoms tend to be fragrant and quick to give up their flavor, and a few of them, like black locust and elderflower, only show up for a week or two each year. That short window is part of what makes a jar of tree-blossom jelly feel like such a seasonal prize.
Apple Blossom Jelly works with any fruit-tree blossom, including cherry, peach, and pear, and it’s a fun way to use the spring blooms you’d otherwise thin off the tree.
Black Locust Flower Jelly has a sweet, almost berry-like flavor from the fragrant white blossom clusters that hang like wisteria in early summer.
Elderflower Jelly showcases the honeyed, muscat-like fragrance of elder blossoms (gather from elder you’ve confirmed, since the blooms come before the berries).
Herbal Jellies (Savory or Sweet)
Not every flower or herb jelly belongs on a piece of toast. Savory jellies made from herbs and aromatic blossoms are built for the cheese board, where they pair with sharp cheeses, crackers, and roasted meats the way mint jelly has always partnered with lamb. A couple of these use a slightly different formula, leaning on vinegar and less sugar, so check the individual recipe before you start.
The method is a close cousin of the flower jellies above, since you’re still steeping a flavorful tea and setting it with pectin, just aiming for a savory edge rather than a sweet one. For more on the technique and how to adapt it to whatever herbs you have on hand, see my full guide to how to make herbal jelly.
Bee Balm Jelly has a more herbal, almost oregano-like character and a striking red color, since bee balm is used around the Mediterranean much like a savory herb.
Savory Chive Blossom Jelly is a vinegar jelly with a gentle oniony flavor that’s wonderful spooned over goat cheese.
Lemon Balm Jelly has a bright, lemony-mint flavor and can be made from fresh or dried leaves, so it works year-round.
Spruce Tip Jelly captures the bright, citrusy flavor of tender new spruce growth, and it uses a shorter steep than the flower jellies.
Mint Jelly is the classic partner for roast lamb, and it comes together quickly with powdered pectin.
Rosemary Jelly is a savory, piney jelly that’s right at home alongside roasted meats and hard cheeses.
Wine Jelly sets a robustly flavored red or white wine into a glossy jelly for the cheese board.
I used this recipe to make Mimosa jelly, then stretched it to 5 cups with some sand plum and strawberry liquid from my freezer. I was apprehensive about my medley mix, but it turned out AMAZING! The color is a beautiful ruby red, and it’s the best flavor of jelly I have ever put in my mouth. I gave a few jars as gifts and everyone commented on how delicious it was!
However you come by your blossoms, whether you’re picking dandelions out of the lawn or clipping lilacs on your way past the garden, flower jelly is one of those projects that turns an ordinary spring afternoon into a row of jars you’ll be glad to have come winter. The method stays the same from one flower to the next, so once you’ve made a batch or two, you can work your way down this whole list a blossom at a time as each one comes into bloom.
The full printable recipe is below, with exact amounts and water bath canning instructions. Steep two to four cups of petals into tea, set it with pectin and a good measure of bottled lemon juice, and you’ll have a shelf of spring on your pantry shelves before the season’s out.
Flower Jelly FAQs
Almost any edible flower works, as long as you’ve correctly identified it and it was grown or gathered without pesticides. Dandelion, violet, lilac, rose, clover, and elderflower are all popular choices, but the same method works for dozens of others. Just be sure the blossom is a confirmed edible variety, since some flowers are toxic and a few have toxic look-alikes.
Yes, as long as you add enough acid. Flower tea on its own is not acidic enough for water bath canning, so the recipe relies on 1/4 cup of bottled lemon juice per 4 cups of tea to drop the pH into the safe range. Use bottled lemon juice rather than fresh for its consistent acidity, and don’t cut the amount back, since that acid is what makes the jelly safe to can.
The most common reason is adding the sugar before the pectin has dissolved and boiled for a full minute, which keeps the jelly from gelling. Overcooking and oversized batches are the other two usual culprits, so stick to a single batch and don’t boil much past the times in the recipe. Give a soft batch a full 24 to 48 hours before deciding it failed, since pectin jelly can take that long to firm up.
Yes. Regular powdered pectin needs the full 5 cups of sugar to set, but if you switch to a low sugar pectin like Sure-Jell Low Sugar or Pomona’s Universal Pectin, you can bring the sugar down to as little as 1 to 2 cups. Reducing the sugar also lowers the yield, so expect a jar or two less than a full-sugar batch.
Flower & Herb Jelly Recipes
If you tried this Flower Jelly Recipe, or any other recipe on Creative Canning, leave a ⭐ star rating and let me know what you think in the 📝 comments below!
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Flower Jelly
Equipment
- Canning Jars, Lids and Bands
Ingredients
For the Flower Tea
- 2 to 4 cups fresh edible flower blossoms, petals only, green parts removed
- 4 cups water
For the Jelly
- 4 cups flower tea, strained
- 1/4 cup bottled lemon juice, or 1 teaspoon citric acid
- 1 box powdered pectin, 1.75 oz, regular, such as Sure-Jell original or 6 Tbsp bulk pectin
- 5 cups granulated sugar, see notes for low sugar option
Instructions
- Bring the water to a boil. Remove from the heat and let it cool for 1 to 2 minutes, then add the flower blossoms and push them down until fully submerged. Cover and steep for at least 1 hour or overnight in the refrigerator.
- Strain the tea through a fine mesh strainer or jelly bag, pressing gently on the blossoms. Measure the strained tea, adding water if needed to reach the full amount called for in the ingredients.
- Pour the flower tea into a large pot and add the lemon juice. Whisk in the powdered pectin until completely dissolved, then bring to a full rolling boil over high heat, stirring constantly. Boil hard for 1 minute.
- Add all the sugar at once and stir to dissolve. Return to a full rolling boil and boil hard for exactly 1 minute, then remove from the heat and skim off any foam.
- Ladle the hot jelly into prepared jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Wipe the rims clean, center the lids, and apply the bands fingertip tight.
- Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes, adjusting for altitude. Turn off the heat and let the jars rest 5 minutes before removing them. Cool undisturbed for 12 to 24 hours before checking the seals.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
More Ways to Use Edible Flowers
Jelly is only the start of what you can do with a basket of blossoms. Once you’ve got the flowers cleaned and ready, they fold just as easily into cordials, baked goods, and even homemade wine, and a few of these have become spring traditions around our place.
Here are some of the other ways we put edible flowers to use beyond the canner:
- Rose Cordial
- Elderflower Cordial
- Lilac Wine
- Dandelion and Honey Ice Cream
- Dandelion Shortbread Cookies
Edible Flower Guides
If you’d like to go deeper on a single flower, these roundups each gather dozens of ways to cook and preserve a particular blossom. They’re a good place to look when you’ve got more of one flower than you know what to do with.
Each guide pairs well with the jelly recipes above, so you can turn one harvest into a whole spread of preserves, drinks, and sweets:
- 60+ Dandelion Recipes
- 60+ Nasturtium Recipes
- 15+ Ways to Use Borage
- How to Eat a Rose (Rose Recipes)
- How to Eat Lilacs (Lilac Recipes)
- How to Eat a Peony (Peony Recipes)
More Jelly Canning Recipes
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amazing! will be making every year from now on. ty
I’m so glad to hear it!
Looking forward to trying to make some of these.
Hi! I want to make a shelf stable syrup with magnolias. Would it still be safe to water bath can if I omitted the pectin to keep it as a syrup instead of a jelly?
Without the pectin, you’d need quite a bit more lemon juice. The pectin contains citric acid which drops the pH, but it also lowers the water activity of the liquid so that it’s harder to spoil. If I had to guess off the cuff, I’d say you’d need about 1/2 cup of lemon juice per 4 cup batch of magnolia tea to ensure the pH is low enough, but that’s an off the cuff guess and not something tested.
love all your recipes!
Wonderful! I’m so happy to hear it!
Can I leave the lavender or chamomile in the jelly instead of straining it out?
With this recipe, no. The jelly itself isn’t acidic enough to have whole pieces of flower in the jelly itself. Sorry, I know they’d be pretty and tasty in there, but if canning, the pH just isn’t low enough to leave them in. (If you’re making a refrigerator or freezer preserve though, go right ahead!)
I used this recipe to make Mimosa jelly, as far as the boiling water to flower ratio, and I ended up with about 3 and a qtr cups of liquid. But I had some frozen sandplums from my harvest last summer and I used a different recipe from somewhere to do that, but I remembered I had a couple of strawberries in fridge that needed to be eaten so I threw then in with the sandplums when boiling. I used the sandplum liquid added to the mimosa tea until I had 5 cups like my plum recipe calls for. I was apprehensive about my medley mix. But it turned out AMAZING!!!!! The color is a beautiful ruby red, and is the best flavor of jelly I have ever put in my mouth!!!!! I gave a few jars as gifts, and they all commented on delicious it was!!!
Wonderful, so glad it turned out for you!
Oops, another question. With daisies, should I be using *only* the petals and not the yellow centers? thanks!
With daisies I’d use the whole flower, just like with chamomile jelly.
Hi! I just made my first batch of lilac jelly, and it’s amazing! I’ve also been harvesting daisies, and I’m wondering two things: do I need to remove all of the green bits (the sepals?) from the daisies, and should I wash them first? Will washing remove flavor along with the pollen? I just took an experimental bite into one of the sepals, and it pretty much just tastes like grass. Not bitter, but not floral either. Thanks!
Before you get started, make sure you know you’re working with an edible flower. There are A LOT of types of daisy, and even more flowers that look like daisies (Scentless Mayweed (Tripleurospermum inodorum), for example, looks like a daisy but is not edible, and there are plenty of others). Daisy in particular isn’t one that I would make a jelly from, at least personally. That said, if you are confident in your ID of a particular edible flower and you want to test how it’d be for jelly, make a small batch of tea with it and add a bit of sugar and a tiny bit of lemon juice. Like literally a few flowers and a cup of boiling water. However the tea tastes will be similar (though not exactly the same) as the jelly, but it’ll give you a good idea whether you want to remove the sepals, just us petals, etc. Every flower is a bit different. The pectin will impact the taste a little bit, and with some things, like aronia berries, it can bind up the tannins and bitter flavors and jelly tastes better than the juice itself. That can also happen with flowers, so it’s not a perfect thing, but for the most part, making a tiny batch of tea will give you a good idea as to how to make the jelly. Best of luck with it!
Thank you! I’ll report back. 🙂
This will never set. This is too much liquid for the amount of sugar and pectin. 2cups tea, 1 pkg pectin, 4 cups of sugar.
If you take a look at just about every recipe on the Sure Jel website, they all have 4 to 6 cups liquid and a 1:1 ratio of sugar to pectin. Using 4 cups tea and 4 cups sugar is the standard for jellies, flower or otherwise. I’m not sure where you’re getting that a box only sets 2 cups liquid, or that you’d need DOUBLE the sugar to liquid to make it work. That’s not the case with powdered pectin.
It’s possible you’re thinking of pouches of liquid pectin, which do require more sugar to set (though not quite double). Usually, you’d use 2 pouches of liquid pectin with 4 cups liquid and 7 cups sugar.
Hope this helps?
Loved the locust jelly
Wonderful!
Hello, I just found out that all parts of the crepe myrtle are edible. Could I use the flowers to make a jelly? I’ve searched online and know you can make tee. Etc but no mention of recipes. And could I use dried hibiscus flowers fir jelly? Thank you for any help.
I’m actually not familiar with crepe myrtle, but in theory, this recipe works with any edible flower.
Why is Gardenia jelly not mentioned in your article? I wanted to try it since I have three large bushes in flower now. Is it not good in jellies?
I’ve never grown those (or eaten them) so it didn’t occur to me. A quick google search says they’re an edible flower, so they should be fine. Let me know how it goes!
I’ve made dandelion jelly, and pear blossom, and now henbit. Do the petals always turn brown when you pour the water over them?
Hmmm…in my case, they’ve always either not changed, or turned white as their color went out into the flower tea in the infusion. Is your finished jelly brown, or just he flower petals that you’re straining out?
I now know why my fireweed tea is bitter. Is there any way to fix it before making jelly or should I just start over?
If it’s bitter, there’s no real way to make it better. You’ve got to start over, sorry to say.
Life got busy and my pedals have been steeping for a few days – are they still good to use?
On the counter at room temperature, they may have gone off, but if you had it in the refrigerator, they’re likely still good.
Can wild sweet pea flowers be used to make jelly ?
A quick google search says that sweet pea plants and flowers are not edible. You can make jelly with any edible flower, but not ones that are not edible. (I don’t grow sweet peas, and I don’t know much about them. I’m relying on google here to tell me whether they’re eidble or not, so if you find different information, do let me know.)
We made the lilac jelly and it is very bitter, almost chokecherry level. We added 6 cups of sugar to make it edible. Any idea what went wrong?
Did you remove the little green parts at the base of each flower? Those are very bitter and you really have to use just the petals. With just the petals it’s not bitter at all, but with all flower jellies you really need just the petals.
I just made violet jelly and dandelion jelly. The first batch of dandelion jelly did not set up, but I used a different recipe. When I used your recipe, it worked every time. I am so excited. This is my first experience with canning of any sort.
Wonderful! The sure jel low sugar pectin type is incredibly dependable, provided you add things in the right order. I’ve had less success with other types of pectin, so this that’s my go to now. I’m so glad it worked for you!
Do you think this would work with herbal teas? I really LOVE celestial seasonings zinger teas, and I think they’d be delicious as jellies!
Yup, that’d work wonderfully!
I’m getting ready to make Redbud Jelly this year. I tried some from a friend last year and it is amazing.
I love this post!! It has inspired so many ides!! I have tried the violet jelly and it was wonderful. I intend to try the peony recipe when they begin to bloom.
Inspired by the recipes, I wonder if I could use wild cherry blossoms.We have a wild cherry growing on our property and the blooms are so pretty, I thought they might make a beautiful jelly!??
Yes, that should work wonderfully! We have a very fragrant crabapple that I’m going to use this year too. Anything edible and fragrant works.
Could you make jelly with dried flowers? If so how many cups of dried blossoms would you steep?
Yes, just be sure they’re completely unsprayed, as some commercially produced dried flowers are heavily treated with preservatives. If you’re buying them, make sure they’re food-grade. Give them a smell too, as some flowers lose their scent (and flavor) when dried. But if they’re clean, unsprayed edible flower varieties and smell good, then yes! You’d use about half as much dried blossoms as you would fresh. (So 2 cups in a recipe that says 4 cups)
would like to try recipes on this post especially rose jam but I can’t find any edible flowers online.
Take a look at mountain rose herbs or starwest botanicals, they’re both good sources.
Can I make lemon balm jelly?
Yup, that’d be delicious!
It IS delicious! I just canned my first batch this year. You can even use dried leaves to make the “tea”. Just taste test it before making the final jelly. Dried herbs tend to have a stronger flavor and you may need to use less.
Can you make jelly using the mint flowers?
Yes, indeed you can. You can also make it with mint leaves too, using the same recipe.
I have blu butterfly pea growing in my yard. It makes a wonderfly tea. Do you think it would make a good jelly?
Yes, I definitely think it would. Let us know how it turns out.
I followed your recipe last year and made dandelion jelly and rose jelly, my kids especially loved it. This year I’m excited to try violet jelly and maybe a lower sugar option.
I do have a question that I struggled with a little last year. When you make the petal tea, and strain the tea into your pot, I never end up with the full 4 cups of water. Should I be making more? Or is this the intention and it’s still best to add 4 cups of sugar? Or maybe I’m packing my petals too tightly? I look forward to your thoughts and guidance.
Thanks!
You can add a little bit more water in the beginning and then pour off any extra or you could also add a little bit of water to make the 4 cups after brewing if you need to.
Could I freeze the tea and make the jelly at a later date? How long do you think it can be frozen without losing flavor? Thanks.
Yes, you can do this. I’m not sure how long you could freeze it for, but I would say it could be frozen for quite a while.
This post was an inspiration to me. I had never realized that flower petals could be made into jelly, but the beautiful and delicious rose/poppy jelly I made last summer using your formula was a treat! I’m looking forward to making more this summer, and also turning some leaves from my wild mint into mint jelly. (I haven’t been able to find mint jelly made without HFCS, much less organic mint jelly, so it’s been decades since I’ve been able to enjoy mint jelly with my pasture raised lamb.) Thank you so much for this revelation.
You’re so very welcome. We’re so glad that you enjoyed the jelly formula and are able to now enjoy your mint jelly again.
Accidentally came across this article and wow!! such great info and so well done adding in the details that most online recipes leave out. Brilliant. And thanks!!
You’re welcome. I’m so glad you enjoyed it.
I didn’t see anything about whether the pollen needs to be removed… does it make a difference?
For most of the floral jellies, you want to use just the flower petal and not the entire flower structure.
Thanks so much! I’m helping a friend with her saffron harvest and am going to try this with the petals!
That’s interesting. I haven’t heard of using the petals before. Are they edible?
They *are* edible! And they smell amazing, too! I found an article about them, if you are interested:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6251391/
Apart from Saffron Crocus SPECIFICALLY, autumn crocus are definitely toxic, so people should NOT experiment with any other kind!
That’s great! Thanks for sharing.
I love creating and making things for those I love. Im making jellies as Christmas gifts this year.
Do you know if Oxblood Lilies are edible?
I am not familiar with anyone using the oxblood lily for food. I tried to do a quick search and wasn’t able to find any information one way or the other. If you find something on this let us know.
As of yet I have still not found anything. I will keep searching and asking.
I have used your recipe for wild violet jelly and it came out perfect! I have not tried the dandelion jelly yet, as our cop this past spring went into dandelion wine instead, but I intend to try it next spring. I have a couple of questions about other jellies, though, that I hope you can help me with.
Hibiscus Jelly: Any particular variety or color that does better than others? We have a white hardy hibiscus that puts out HUGE blossoms, but don’t have a red hibiscus. Will the white do, and will it have much color at all in the final jelly? There’s also a tropical hibiscus with showier blossoms, but they don’t survive winter here in Kentucky. Does it matter which you use? Are they both edible?
Mint jelly: As usual, our mint is exploding about this time of year, and I would like to make mint jelly. Can I use this same basic recipe substituting mint leaves for flower petals? Does this also need lemon juice to set properly?
Sugar vs Splenda: I am pre-diabetic, and my doctor wants me to avoid sugar. I have a bag of Splenda for Baking, which is supposed to measure 1 for 1 instead of sugar. It works great for cobblers, etc. Can it be used instead of sugar in jelly making if I use the low-sugar pectin?
Thanks for any information you have on these kind of left-field questions!
If the hibiscus is white, it will most likely not have much color in the finished product. It is very important to know exactly which variety of hibiscus you have and then do your research to be sure that your variety is edible. If it is edible then the only way to know how it will taste is to just experiment and try it. You can definitely try this recipe with mint and use the lemon juice since like flowers, the herbs do not have the natural pectin that many fruits have. I actually found this recipe from Pomona Pectin for a mint jelly that you might want to try. It uses honey. https://pomonapectin.com/mint-lemon-jelly-with-honey/ I know that Splenda can typically be used with Pomona but you might want to check with them directly for this specific recipe.
Is dianthus a good flower to use for jelly?
I haven’t tried it but I would be interested to know how it works out if you decide to try it.
I’m mixing dianthus, marigold, hibiscus and some dandelion to make a mixed flower jelly..
That sounds so fun. I can’t wait to hear how it turns out.
Loving all these pretty jellies! Thank you for sharing my Strawberry & Elderflower Jam:-)