Confitures and the setting point

The preserving of fruit in sugar belongs to the long tradition of the French office, the room of the great house where sweetmeats, jellies and conserves were made apart from the kitchen. Larousse Gastronomique treats confiture as a method of conservation by sugar and heat, carried by the confiseur and the household alike. The regional kitchens each hold their own: the groseille of Bar-le-Duc, the fruits of the Loire valley and the orchards of Provence are all worked by the same principle.

Confiture is fruit cooked with sugar until the mixture reaches its setting point, then potted while hot so that it keeps. Whole or cut fruit, such as strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa), apricot (Prunus armeniaca) or red currant (Ribes rubrum), is macerated with sugar, usually in near equal weight, and boiled in a wide copper bassine. Pectin, naturally present in the fruit and freed by acid, gels with the sugar as the water evaporates; the cook adds lemon juice to fruit low in acid or in pectin. The distinction from the jelly, which is made from strained juice, and from the compote, which is not preserved by sugar, is exact.

Confiture is spread on bread, brioche and croissant at breakfast, filled into tarts and used between the layers of cakes, and it accompanies fresh cheeses such as fromage blanc. It is drunk with coffee, tea or hot milk at the morning table. The structural reason is balance: the sweetness and fruit acidity answer the butter and the plain crumb of the bread, and cut the fat of the pastry.