May 2026

How to Make Flower Jellies + Violet Jelly Recipes

Looking for flower jelly recipes? Catherine S. Pond shares tips and a recipe you can make with flowers straight from your yard.

Edible spring and summer flowers make the perfect ingredients for transforming into delicate jellies. Not only are they delicious and easy to make, but the end result will also be naturally colored and make great gifts or the perfect addition to your next tea party—and definitely yummy on biscuits or scones!

What Is Flower Jelly?

Flower jelly is made by steeping edible flowers in hot water to create a floral “tea,” then combining that liquid with lemon juice, sugar and pectin to create a soft, spreadable jelly.

The end result is a lightly floral jelly with beautiful natural color and a flavor that feels like spring in a jar.

Flowers You Can Make Into Jellies

Although I've only made violet jelly, you can use many different types of edible flowers for jellies, including:

Dandelion
Forsythia
Lilac
Redbud
Rose
Violet (or Pansy or Johnny Jump-Ups)

JUMP TO RECIPE

Tips for Picking Edible Flowers for Jelly

Before you start gathering flowers, make sure they are safe to use.

Use unsprayed flowers and remove any stems or greenery. You don’t need to wash them, but make sure to pick them when they aren’t wet. A little morning dew is fine.

You will also want to pick flowers in an area that has not been sprayed, or, at least, has not been sprayed since the summer prior. If they are the first flowers on the roadside, you should be fine as long as you choose a less-traveled road, or better yet, your own yard or farm lane!

Gathering Violets for Homemade Jelly

Violet jelly has to be the easiest jelly I've ever made: the hardest part, to be honest, is leaning down and picking the delicate flowers!

After a good forty-five minutes of picking one early spring morning (myself, our youngest boy and his friend––ok, I paid them!)––and lots of me saying "OH, look at the Jack-in-the-Pulpit! The trillium!" (a new cache we discovered up the road from our farm) or the kids showing me great new finds like clusters of small yellow violets––we, miraculously it seemed, had 2 heaping cups of violet blossoms (the recipe for jelly called for four cups of violets, but more about that in a moment).

I used to pick Johnny Jump Ups, the wild pansy variety, which grew all over our lawns when we lived in New Hampshire, to crystallize and decorate small cakes at the country museum tea room I used to operate.

They have a subtly sweet flavor and are perfect for dainty desserts or just thrown into a salad. You can even make them into vinegar and sherbet.

As there are many varieties of violets in Kentucky that grow on roadsides and at the edges of fields before the grasses come in, and early in the spring, I wanted to find ways to "put them up," particularly the prolific sweet purple violet. (There are other more scarce varieties that grow in the woodlands.) I was not disappointed.

Violet Jelly Recipe

This violet jelly recipe can also be used as a base for other edible flower jellies, including dandelion, forsythia, lilac, redbud and rose. Simply use the flowers in equal measure when adapting the recipe.

Violet Jelly Ingredients

2 cups fresh violet blossoms
Boiling water, enough to fill a quart jar
Juice of 1 lemon
4 cups sugar
1 packet powdered pectin, such as Sure-Jell

Yield: 4-5 half-pint jars of jelly

Note: I only had 2 cups of violets, but I wanted to double the recipe. Even using half the amount of violets, the jelly still had a beautiful color and flavor. Using more violets would likely just intensify the flavor a bit.

Before you Start

Use freshly picked, unsprayed flowers. Remove any stems or greenery before steeping the petals.

How to Make Violet Jelly

The Night Before: Make the Violet Tea

Place the freshly picked violets in a glass quart jar.
Cover the flowers with boiling water, filling the jar to the top. You will see the violet petals immediately start to steep and cast off a lovely pale blue.
Cover the jar and let the violets steep overnight, or for at least a few hours.
The next morning, the violets will have floated all through the "violet tea" and will be pale in color. Strain the violet tea through a sieve into a quart measuring cup or bowl.
Discard the petals.

The Next Day: Make the Jelly

Add the lemon juice to the violet tea and watch the pale violet color transform before your eyes!
Pour the violet and lemon juice mixture into a non-reactive pan.
Stir in the powdered pectin.
Add the sugar and stir until the mixture comes to a boil.
Boil hard for one minute, stirring constantly.
Pour the jelly into prepared half-pint jars.
Process in a boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes to seal.

How to Serve Violet Jelly

And voila! Violet jelly. Enjoy liberally on toast, scones, biscuits, pancakes and whatever your heart desires. The flavor is floral, sweet and crisp with hints of berry, basically the taste of spring in a delicate spread!