The title pretty much says it all. Thoughts?
Well, jelly is different from either in that it has no fruit pieces, and is thus smoother and (in my opinion) more palatable.
Jelly is a clear gel of pectin, and fruit juice, with enough sugar to discourage bacterial growth, and leave a sticky mess on your fingers if you put too much on your sammich.
Jam is fruit cooked with sugar and pectin pretty much like jelly, but not strained, and all the fruit left in, but pretty much cooked to bits. It usually has a bit less sugar than jelly, sometimes less pectin as well.
Preserves are fruit in syrup, cooked until sterile, with or without pectin, and the physical character of the fruit left intact to at least some extent. The amount of syrup varies greatly from one recipe to another.
Tris
Jelly is a huge pain in the ass to make and you use a jelly sock. You strain everything out of it that you’d really want to eat, and you leave something pretty that’s utterly divorced from the actual food you used to make it.
Preserves are what God eats for breakfast. 
Aye, aye. Forget the facts, that is the thruth.
So where does marmalade fit into all of this?
Marmalade has tiny pieces of rind in the fruit mixture.
One major difference for me is that orange jelly tastes sweet like orange jello, while orange jam and preserves are puckery like marmalade.
Don’t forget conserves.
“A conserve is a preserve made with two or three contrasting fruits, or with two fruits and a fruit or nut butter, or a mix of fruits and nut.”
I do not.
It must be jelly, 'cause jam don’t shake like that.
Thanks for the bit about conserves. I was thinking that I’d recently read somewhere that preserves had nuts–though this goes against my every instinct.
And while we’re talking about bottled things, don’t forget pickles. Some combination of salt, sugar, vinegar, and spices.
But are you God?
blech
Yes.
OOoooooh, cool. I always wanted to ask You: Can You make a stone so heavy that You can’t lift it?
What’s ‘Apple Butter’?
Firstly, jam has pieces of fruit in it, and preserves might not necessarily be fruit at all, they can also be vegetables.
It’s a spread, usually very cinnamony, brown in color. It tastes like strong, very very sweet cinnamony applesauce, but is much smoother in consistency. Somehow it’s not too sweet, and not cloying IMO. It’s good, try some!
CCPlease drop a big stone on Eledil’s Heir. Thank you.
Calling down divine wrath on a fellow Doper is not cool, man. NOT cool.