21 Easy Steps to Making Fig Preserves

Family History Of Making Fig Preserves

When I was a little kid visiting my grandparents in the South Alabama town called Loxely, I recall moments in the laundry room looking up at all the canned foods my grandmother prepared. They lined the shelves with a range of colors from each of the different fruits and vegetables that my grandfather picked from the gardens. One of my favorite activities was to go out in the yard and pick fresh figs. I enjoyed that natural sweet snack and along with that there was a time for breakfast where I would spread my favorite preserves onto my toast. I would like to share with you this memory with a step-by-step instruction on how to make Fig Preserves presented by my mom who has the recipe memorized. It’s not very difficult and I’m sure you will enjoy this delicious snack. You will need to allow yourself up to 2 hours to make it and a chair or a little helper if you can’t stand for long periods at the stove for stirring.

Preparations

Tools/Materials

• Jar lifter
• Canning funnel
• 12, 8-oz canning jelly jars

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs figs, unpeeled
• 3 cups granulated sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 lemon, sliced thin

Let’s begin

Directions:

1. Run your glass jars through the dishwasher to help sterilize them.
2. Rinse figs in cold water.
3. Soak figs for about 20 minutes in a large bowl.
4. Make a sugary syrup by boiling water and stirring in sugar together in a large saucepan. Keep stirring to prevent the sugar from burning for about 15 minutes.
5. When the syrup is clear and thick, add figs and lemon slices.
6. Bring to boil over high heat and boil for 1 minute.
7. Lower heat and then simmer for 20-25 minutes. Continue to stir.

   

8. Remove from heat.
9. Carefully scoop up the clumpy fig pieces and lemon slices and place into a food processor or blender and pulse chop the pieces into a pulp.

   

10. Return the pulp back into the saucepan that contains the redish syrupy mixture.
11. Bring to a boil and then turn to a low heat.
12. Stir for 40 minutes or until you’ve reached a desired thick consistency.

    

13. Place glass jars into a large saucepan filled with water and bring to a boil for a few minutes.

    

14. Place canning lids in a small saucepan filled with water and heat to a low boil.

    

15. Remove a few jars and place on a towel.
16. Place funnel over a jar and then carefully ladle the pulp to fill the jar.

    

17. Clean the top edge of the jar with a towel.
18. Cover jars with the canning lids and loosely screw the retainer ring onto the jar. Do not tighten.
19. Carefully place the jars into a saucepan covered completely with boiling water for 10 minutes. (you may use the saucepan that you boiled the jars in earlier).
20. Repeat steps 15-19 until all the jars have been filled. (you might be able to do this with 9 jars at a time depending on how large the saucepan is in step 18).

    

21. Remove the jars from the water and place on a towel. After about a minute, you will hear a pop sound of the lids sucking into place as the jars cool.

    

    

• Don’t tighten the retainer rings, otherwise you could break the seal.

*A special thanks to my mom for finding this recipe and for the necessary recipe modifications to make the perfect fig preserves. She did all the work in the above photos. All I did was stir when she couldn’t stand for long periods of time.