homemade fruitjuice concentrate jellies candy

Thus, these new products are called spreads or conserves in the United States. Sorrell Ridge is now the third-largest-selling brand in the fruit spread category, after Smucker's Simply Fruit and Polaner All Fruit.īy using fruit-juice concentrates with their high amount of moisture as a sweetener, it is virtually impossible to achieve a product that is 65 percent sugar, in compliance with the Federal code, unless the product is so overcooked that the moisture evaporates. At this point, he will only say that his formula has been changed somewhat. In 1983, he sold Sorrell Ridge to Allied-Old English, a company in New Jersey that had been making diet products. 'But I didn't really know the food business and there was a limit to what I could do to market the stuff down a narrow dirt road a million miles from nowhere.' 'I knew I had hit on something with the fruit juice,' he said. Then he made some of his Sorrell Ridge brand preserves, using fruit-juice concentrates as a sweetener. His initial attempts, with honey, met with some success. He had fled the urban world to acres of wild blueberries in the rural Canadian province of New Brunswick. Then along came Richard Worth, an entrepreneur whose 1970's counterculture food philosophy inspired him to try making preserves without using refined sugar. Commercial producers sometimes use a combination of cane sugar and corn syrup as the sweetener. This formula is based on cane sugar, which has been used to preserve fruit since the 16th century, when the Spanish started cultivating it in the West Indies. Also, the use of acid, as in lemon juice, can balance the sweetness. There is plenty of water in the raw fruit that is used, and some of it eventually boils away. Home cooks have traditionally used equal amounts, but these days, many are cutting back on the amount of sugar. The typical proportions in commercial kitchens are 45 percent fruit to 55 percent sugar. That may sound like a lot of sugar, but remember that the mixture does not start out that way. In Europe a similar regulation applies to products labeled conserve. (These products are called preserves for a reason.)įurthermore, Federal law requires that in order to call a product jam or preserve on the label, 65 percent of the final product must be soluble solids - meaning sugar.

A certain amount of sugar and acidity also prevents the growth of dangerous microorganisms. Without getting too technical about jam-making, a high proportion of sugar to fruit is necessary for a properly jelled product with good flavor - the result of the balance between fruit, sweetening and acidity. The best texture was uniform, not stiff or runny. The preferred brands retained bright, inviting color and an intense, fresh berry taste that was not too sweet and did not taste overcooked. And with the introduction of Welch's all-fruit grape spread about a year ago, the spreads' sales are expected to continue increasing.Ī tasting of 15 raspberry spreads showed wide variation in color, texture, flavor and sweetness.

Nonexistent 10 years ago, the spreads now represent 12 percent of the retail market, with sales of $77.5 million for the year ending Aug. Fruit spreads, as products sweetened with fruit juice concentrates are called, are now the fastest-growing part of the preserves market.

Homemade fruitjuice concentrate jellies candy