Jenny Gomes

This post will share how to can favors for a bridal shower, wedding, baby shower, or other parties where you want to put love into jars and give the gift of something delicious.

This post contains affiliate links.

Canning for a party can be a cost-effective, fun, impressive way of thanking guests for coming to your event. Before you think, “I don’t have time to make 40 jars of jam” hear me out.

Canning favors for a party is genius for several reasons.

You can preserve jam, hot sauce, salsa, or some other preserve that fits with your color or party theme which doubles as an element of decor and label it with a sentiment that fits the host or event perfectly.

Imagine: Pear butter preserved and the line, “A Perfect Pear | Allie & Taylor”  … adorable, right?

Thanking your housewarming party guests with teeny-but-terrific jars of hot salsa; “From one warm heart to another!” …so cute!

Because of these 4 ounce jars or this variety of 8-ounce jars, the quantity of preserve you are sharing is actually small, you can keep the cost and time commitment down.

I particularly love the 4-ounce jars because they are displayed easily on a cupcake tower (they have the same size base as a standard cupcake).

If you have a smaller guest list (and don’t mind canning a bit more preserve), using these wide mouth half pint jars makes stacking a tower easy- the 4-ounce jars don’t stack as well atop one another.

I recently made jam for my good friend’s bridal shower and it took me a few afternoons and it was so fun to contribute something that people could enjoy and consume rather than stick on a shelf and never use. The jam was easy too because I stuck it in my trunk and headed down the road- no ice chest needed on the way to the out- of-town party. Another super talented bridesmaid created the labels so when I got to the host’s home, I tied them on and ta-da!

And, of course, I was able to share with my good friend (the beauty in the pink top!) that I love her and I’m happy to be included in her wedding!

How to Can Favors for a Party

Firm up the Guest List

The first step to canning for a party is to firm up the guest list. Get a head count and plan to make a few jars over that. You might consider making a bit extra for people who help with the shower. In my experience, this usually means doubling a canning recipe OR simply making a batch 2 or 3 times. Canning a triple batch (all in one fell swoop, in one pot, all at once) can be somewhat overwhelming. It can take a long time, and the preserve may not cook evenly and I would consider this to a be a more advanced activity. OR, the worst case scenario is you get it all in the pot and it boils over. I’ve tried to cook more than I should in one pot and not been happy with my results the way I am with a regular sized batch, done over an afternoon or so. One problem can be that the bottom can burn and burn jam isn’t delicious.

I’d advise 1. Determining the number of jars you need

2. Deciding if this means 2 or 3 or more batches and then

3. Cooking no more than a double batch at once.

Next, think about a preserve that you’d possibly like to gift. This is probably not the project for a preserve that takes a really long cook or prep time- unless of course, you desire a more lengthy project. Fast Raspberry Jam is one I’ve done several times for showers with great success. You can get frozen grocery store raspberries pretty readily and they are fairly inexpensive when they are in season or from a U-Pick. They are bright pink, which often times is a win thematically. Other recipe suggestions are strawberry jam or syrup, pickled pearl onions (these pearly beauties would be rad to give for a less-traditional shower as they are great cocktail garnishes), plum jam (dark purple), or  tomato jam (a savory ‘jam’ that’s amazing on top of pasta with goat cheese or on a meat sandwich **insert all the heart eyes here**).

Then, you’ll select your recipe and do the math. Determine how many jars (4 or 8-ounce jars) you’d yield from your selected recipe and decide how many batches you’d need to preserve. For example, if you know you are expecting 35 guests, and want to make 5 extra jars, you need 40 jars total. If I’m making the Fast Raspberry Jam, it yields 16, 4-ounce jars. That would mean I’d plan to make 3 batches, over 3 different afternoons, way before the shower. Weeks before. No one needs the stress of canning the night before- that’s not fun, Wildflowers. 3 batches would yield 48 tiny jars so I’d have plenty in case a guest asked to take an extra jar home (that will probably happen!).

Pro Tools for Canning for Party Favors:

Large preserving pan 

Potato masher for raspberry jam

Food Mill (so helpful for making a smooth jam or puree!):

4 ounce jars:

8 ounce jars (several cute options here!):

Pro Tip: Don’t be afraid to buy frozen fruit. You can can frozen fruit- don’t feel limited by the seasonality of produce to give the gift of love in jars

Steam canning is a great choice for canning for party favors because you’ll be getting preserving 2- 3 or more batches and steam canning is a huge time saver. You can read my post here about steam canners, or download this fact sheet all about them! I love them and rarely use my regular water bath pot now that I have a steam canner.

Decorating the lids: You could go crazy with decorating the lids. I’m not a decor-crazy girl, and paper crafts are not my specialty, so I’ll first remind you to let the preserve shine. The jars are clear, the preserve will be beautiful, and your effort and labor of love will be stunning. You don’t have to go overboard. That said, here are a few ideas for decorating and display.

My Love Into Jars labels can be printed at home on an Avery label template or printed on plain paper and cut out and are neutral but really cute.

Etsy is a terrific resource for affordable, editable, and beautiful labels and tags of all kinds. These round ones are adorable as are all these!

This batch of fast raspberry jam canned in 4-ounce jars and was arranged on a cupcake tower – the advantage here was the tags could be BIG (the jars are little, Wildflowers!) and it created quite a centerpiece. A cupcake tower or cake stand is a great way to display your jars. These are some cute options!

That one’s not a cupcake tower exactly, but so cute with jars stacked on top!

You can totally do it! Even if you’ve never canned, I can teach you how! Sign up for my FREE Canning Basics course and you’ll be putting Love Into Jars in no time!

Raspberry jam is one of the fastest preserves a person could make. Canning has a terrible reputation as being time-consuming- this recipe proves that canning can be quick, easy, and is a simple extension of the cooking process. Raspberry jam is a delight to give as gifts, easy to pick at U-pick farms, and delicious preserved in mason jars. 

If you’ve happened upon this recipe, and realize it is a canning recipe, don’t click away. You can make the recipe below and eat it fresh, or better yet, let me teach you how to can- it’s so fun and easy! I have a free Canning Basics Course you can join right here!

I’ve timed myself several times making this recipe, as we have a gorgeous U-Pick very near my home, and I can go from berries in a basket to the stove OFF, jars sealed, and me walking out the door in 20 minutes (Read my post about the 5 Reasons to Visit a U-Pick here!). I’m not exaggerating. Once you start this recipe, be ready: It goes quickly!

True, I don’t have to search for my canning equipment (I know that can be a time suck for any activity) and this isn’t my first rodeo, but a newbie could easily complete this recipe in 30 minutes (Read my post on the Best Canning Equipment for a Beginner here or download the free equipment checklist below to get started!).

Not only is raspberry jam really fast in a water bath process, but it is also 15 minutes faster in a steam canner. Read more about these terrific, time savers here.

Raspberry Jam is Ideal for Beginners

because raspberries are naturally high in the acid that prohibits the growth of spoilers inside the jar after the jar is sealed.

Watch this video for more about why this is the fastest canning recipe to make!

The worst thing that could happen when making this jam is that it turns out a little thin. Thin jam is syrup, Wildflowers, and that is still a success in my book.

A note about pectin: Pectin is the plant version of cartilage in animals. It gives shape and stiffness to your jam and jelly (and we use the animal version as gelatin to make Jell-O, etc). I like to use store bought pectin to thicken my jams, and I typically use the powdered 1.75-ounce boxes because they are easy to halve (the liquid packs are hard to use just part of and are a bit messy) and they are inexpensive and found readily in grocery stores. Liquid pectin is nice because it mixes up nicely with your jam and there’s no threat of lumps but I’ve never had my powdered pectin lump up- when you sprinkle it in, be ready to whisk with vigor, as you mean it, for a few minutes.

If you’d like to skip the store-bought pectin (powdered or liquid) this might be a good jam to try it with because pectin hasn’t any bearing on the canned good’s safety (safety first, Wildflowers!) and raspberry seeds have a significant amount of natural pectin in them. The longer the raspberry jam is cooked (probably on lower heat and more slowly than the following Fast Raspberry Jam directions indicate), the more jam-stiffening natural pectin will be released from the seeds and the stiffer your jam will naturally be. As a comparison, strawberry jam won’t ever stiffen up quite the way raspberry will, naturally anyway, partially because raspberries have more seeds.

Fast Raspberry Jam Recipe

Download the free recipe printable here! 

Yields 4 cups jam– you’ll need 16 tiny 4-ounce jars (so great for gifting or for a bridal shower!) 8 half-pint jars

Prepare your steam canner (I use this kind and love it)

3.5 pounds Raspberries (about 7 cups)

2/3 cup bottled lemon juice

1 1/2 cup sugar

Combine ingredients above in a preserving pan on medium heat while mashing with a potato masher or wooden spoon and bring to a boil. Be mindful that this is FAST raspberry jam- I’m not just saying that. This recipe can go from start to finish in under 20 minutes so be ready! 

Whisk in a 1.75-ounce box of powdered pectin with vigor, and boil 1-2 minutes longer.

Jam can be eaten once it is cooled at this point, but to preserve it in canning jars, follow the following steps and if you’d like to learn more about canning, sign up for the FREE Canning Basics course beneath the recipe!

Ladle into hot jars (from the rack of your steam canner or from the boiling water pot) one at a time, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.

Apply lids and rings and process for 10 minutes at sea level, and add 5 minutes for every 1000 feet you live above sea level.

Learn how to can with me in my FREE Canning Basics Course here in a few easy email lessons!

This jam is a great one for gifting or sharing at a shower (bridal or baby). I made a tower of raspberry jam for a friend’s bridal shower and we arranged them in a cupcake tower. ADORABLE, right?! Grab these tags from Etsy and you are set!

Share your Love Into Jars, Wildflowers and grab the adorable Love Into Jars Baseball Tees right here!

Canning season is right around the corner and this post will explain exactly how to get ready for my favorite time of year. These steps will help you be ready for canning season and all the bounty it brings. There’s nothing worse than coming into a bargain quantity of produce and not having what you need to preserve it. Let’s get ready!  

This post contains affiliate links.

Why in the world do you need to worry about getting ready right now? As you learn more about canning you will see that lots of canning happen in an unplanned fashion. Once you have the equipment and a general idea of how it works, you will likely happen upon a quantity of products that you want to can up right away. Produce should be canned when it is at its peak, and you don’t typically have time to waste. Furthermore, I have found that once friends and acquaintances find out that you are a budding canner, they will surely offer up free or cheap quantities of berries or peppers and because you will have read this post, you will be ready to preserve them. This post will detail exactly how you can get ready now and you’ll be ready to go whenever preserving opportunity knocks.

Want the quick version of this post? Download your 1 page canning season prep checklist here!

1. Look in your pantry. Check out your shelves and think about what you cooked all year long. What did you run out of (home canned or not) that you wished you hadn’t? What staples do you go to on busy nights or for fun meals with friends? In my home, I doubt I will ever be able to can enough tomato sauce. Pasta is a kid and husband pleaser, the tomato sauce I make counts as a vegetable when I’m too rushed to fix a green one, and it is supremely versatile. I can over a hundred pounds of tomatoes every year and run out by early summer (100 pounds isn’t THAT much- it is several flats. Don’t be too impressed. Tomatoes are heavy).
2. Make a wish list. Think about the recipes you would like to try, the fruit or veggies you wished you had canned but never got your hands on, or the thing your loved one would truly appreciate to be given. Flip through a canning book or the Start Canning section of this site for inspiration.
3. Think about seasons. You may have to use a canning cookbook or the google machine for this part but consider what time of year you are reading this and what fruit and vegetable will be ripening in your area. Many canning cookbooks are arranged by season for this very reason. I might be excited to can apple juice this year, but I need to know that there is a while to wait since apples aren’t ripe in my area until October. Very generally speaking you can expect these few example items to be ripe in the following seasons:

Spring: Strawberries – Asparagus

Summer: Berries – cucumbers- peppers- tomatoes

Fall: Apples- Pears

Winter: Citrus

4. Take stock of your equipment. I wrote a super thorough post about the equipment you need to start canning here, and you should absolutely read that one next if you haven’t already. You might need to get some teeny jam jars if you plan on making special jam to give at a bridal shower, or some quarts if you want to make a glut of apples into juice, for example.

5. Buy your non-perishable grocery items.

Because I’m pretty much perpetually canning or making shrubs, I go through a lot of these items and purchase them in large quantities. You need to have on hand the following items:

Store bought lemon juice. Store bought lemon juice is actually very important because when you buy your lemon juice from the store, it is sold at a standard acidity- probably 5% or more. I explain the importance of acid & canning in this post here but the main thing you need to know is if a recipe calls for lemon juice it is probably to bring the acid of a recipe up (and the pH down below 4.6) and a plain old lemon that you squeeze yourself might not be acidic enough to do so. If the recipe you want to try calls for a “squeeze of lemon” or “zest of a lemon” then they mean you can use a whole lemon as the source. If it calls for a specific measurement of juice, use bottled.  

Vinegar. Buy vinegar that is of better quality than the cheap while you might use to wash windows or descale a faucet. If the recipe calls for a specific acid level, get it. If you are not sure what recipes you will be trying exactly or you are just getting started, buy a gallon of white vinegar that is advertised as “delicious” or some other food-specific descriptor and a bottle of apple cider vinegar (useful in shrubs and lots of other applications). I find the stringent tasting, good for cleaning vinegar on the bottom shelf of the supermarket and it usually has a plain label. It isn’t like the bottom shelf variety will harm you or your pickles, it is just the better the quality, the better the end product will likely taste. You want your cucumbers to taste pickled, not like vinegar.

Sugar. Buy a quantity that you can comfortably store and bear in mind making jam, syrup, jelly, etc takes a large quantity and most times, cutting back on the sugar in the recipe is a no-no. Sugar is a powerful preservative and as such, it is pretty darn important that you follow the recipe. Once I get my large sack home, I usually dispense it into half gallon mason jars and screw the lids on tightly because I have ants. You also can store it in the freezer to avoid pests. I buy white, plain old granulated sugar. Some recipes call for brown but if you are short on space, get just white. You don’t want powdered, confectioner’s sugar.

Salt. Pickling salt is labeled as such because it lacks the additive that will make your pickle juice cloudy. I wrote a blog post about the differences between pickling salt and regular salt here!  That post will help you decide if you need to pickling salt or not. If you are the kind of person that frets about cloudy pickle juice you might be comforted by purchasing pickling salt. I just use the regular Morton (or whatever is on sale) iodized salt because I don’t care about cloudiness and my jars usually have a mineral-y, hazy film on the exterior because I often forget to pour a glug of white vinegar into the canning pot which would prevent the lime in my hard water from clinging to the jars. I don’t actually make many batches of pickles per year, so I haven’t found that more than a couple of the cylindrical containers of salt to be more than I need. Also, note that a recipe might refer to the salt + ingredients as “brine.” That just means salt+water+whatever else liquid and it will likely be combined, boiled, and then poured over the vegetables.

Citric acid. Here’s another store-bought item that you readers might be surprised to see my list. I’m all about homemade but this is another purchase made for safety sake. I discuss acid & canning at length here but citric acid is a way to bring the acid level of tomatoes in particular (and some other veggie recipes) to a safer level. It is preferable to lemon juice because it is flavorless. It is a white powder and you usually need about a teaspoon per pint jar. I have never gone through more than one container in a season.

Canning Lids. You need NEW lids to can with. Use those used lids for cute projects like this one here and for storing dry goods. Buy the size (regular or wide mouth are the ONLY sizes there are; hallelujah!) that matches the jars you have. I usually buy a lot- 5 or more boxes of each size- when I see them at a good price, but I can pretty steadily from about June to October. I’d say start with 2 boxes of each size if you haven’t acquired jars yet. That will be enough to get going. Get the complete canning equipment list here. You’ll be surprised to find that you already own most of this stuff already!

If you are a person who prefers video, I recorded a video showing you all the best tools you’d need as a beginner on my YouTube channel. Watch it here!

That is it, Wildflowers! By following the list, you will gather what you need and will be ready whenever you happen to have the time + produce to can.

Click to print your canning season prep checklist and planner here!

Ready to take the next step? Want to learn how to can delicious, healthy foods you can give to friends & family? The canning course for busy beginners, Start Canning is accepting students! Learn STEP BY STEP in premium video lessons here! 

Enroll Now!

Many canning recipes call for pickling salt, and curious canners want to know: Do you need to use pickling salt? I’ll explain what pickling salt is, when you should use it, when it is okay to skip, and you’ll want to dive into canning immediately because salt is salt, Wildflowers.

Pickling salt is regular salt that has NO anti-caking agent nor any iodine. Salt that you and I buy typically has a few additives in it that make for a cloudy brine.

This post contains affiliate links.

The word “additive” has a negative connotation and it shouldn’t because not all additives are bad. An additive simply means it is added. Without those additives, the salt in my Morton container would be rock hard. This post aims to clarify the role of these additives when they are in the pickling process.

Do You Need to Use Pickling Salt?

Watch the YouTube version of this post below if you prefer.

Pickling salt is officially recommended by the USDA because by having a clear brine, a canner can see what their pickles look like. I’ll be the first to admit that cosmetics aren’t a priority to me in my canning pursuits (I rarely strain my juice and I don’t remove seeds from my jam, for example) but cloudy brine isn’t problematic from a visual standpoint.

If you can’t SEE what’s going on inside your jar, you won’t be able to identify if perhaps you’ve forgotten an ingredient or if your jar hasn’t sealed and your pickles have spoiled. True, when you opened the jar, there are lots of clues (odor, texture, color, and more) that would tell you these things but a clear brine helps a canner see what’s going on in the jar. You might enjoy reading my post, What Happens When You Forget the Lemon Juice because I explore in depth some sealed jars absent of the acidifying ingredient. It’s not pretty, but it is really fascinating 🙂

I’ve said many times that one of the wonderful things about canning is that mason jars are clear- literally and metaphorically. You can SEE what is going on inside. So, if you choose to make Pickled Pearl Onions or Carrot Pickles for example and you use regular salt, you won’t really be able to see inside as well as if you used pickling salt.

How cloudy will your brine be? Well, if you don’t use pickling salt, it will vary based on the recipe but it won’t be dramatic. Pickling salt brine will be very clear (hello County Fair entries and Instagram photo ops) and regular salt  brine will be just a bit clouded, not completely opaque.

I confess that I rarely use pickling salt for my personal preserving. When I see pickling salt on sale, I buy it, but only when it is as cheap as regular salt. This is a personal choice based on the fact that I’m confident in my ability to discern if something has gone awry inside a jar (almost never) and that my jars almost always seal (truly…I can’t think of the last time I had one fail). I also don’t pickle as often as I jam or make tomato sauce or other sauces. This might be because I don’t have a garden (shocking, I know!) and don’t grow hoards of tiny pickling cucumbers but I DO have access to tons of wild berries and stone fruit on the family ranch, for free. Canning is a practice of penultimate practicality.

As you become more experienced, you might opt for regular salt in a pinch and preserve cloudy pickles but proceed at your own risk. Just like driving with a dirty windshield, it will be harder to see what’s on the other side of the glass.

Flaked salt (like sea salt) varies in density and flake size and shouldn’t be used for pickling. So, avoid using “fancy” salts for canning.

If you’d love to learn more about canning, I want to invite you to my FREE Canning Basics course where I teach beginners all about how to get started with this fun, practical way of cooking quickly in advance! Join me here!

Enroll Now!

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