Perfect Peach Preserves

I don't care if you call this Peach Jam, Peach Jelly or Peach Preserves. It's just out and out delicious! My first venture into preserving jams and jellies happened only a few months ago.

I had some cherries that I knew would end up going bad and being fed to our pot-belly pigs. So I decided to make Cherry Jelly. It was so easy and so good (I promise I'll post the recipe as soon as possbile).

Then I made Grape Jelly and it was also pretty easy and very tasty! Now I'm hooked. So when hubs brought home a basket of peaches I decided to make peach jam. Hubs wasn't pleased that his anticpated treat of a fresh peach was ruined but he did like the jam.

So this weekend I sent him to the store to buy more. And I took pictures to share with you because this recipe is the easiest I've ever made. And I am so hooked on fresh peach jam on a crumpet.

Here's all you need:

12 peaches. Pit them, but leave the skins on. Chunk them up and toss in a big stock pot on the stove. Turn it to boil then boil on medium for about 20 minutes until the peaches are soft and mostly liquid. You can use an immersion blender to make the jam smoother or leave it chunky, it's your choice.

Pour the peach syrup into measuring cups because you need exactly 6 cups of syrup. If you haven't got 6 cups, add some water to make up the difference. You could probably add brandy and oh my think of the delicious brandy peach jam you'd have at the end!

4 1/2 cups of white sugar. After you pour back 6 cups of peach syrup into the pot, bring it back to a boil and add the sugar. Boil hard for one minute. Stir now and again.

1 package of powdered pectin. After the sugar-syrup mixture boils hard for one minute, add the pectin and stir. Bring it all back to a boil and boil hard for another minute. You can test the jam for thickness if you want. I don't bother as I don't mind if it's a bit runny. That lovely peach jam just soaks into the crumpet's little holes even better!

How to test your jam: put a small plate and spoon in the freezer when you start the jam. After the pectin mixture has boiled for one minute, put a bit on the cold spoon, pour it out on the cold plate and pop it back in the freezer for a few seconds. Then check it's consistency.

Now you pour your peach preserves into sterlized mason jars and give them a hot water bath for 10 minutes. Label with name and date and get ready to enjoy the taste of fresh peaches all winter long.

12 peaches yields about 8 2-cup mason jars of preservers. Today I doubled the recipe. 24 peaches gave me 17 2-cup Mason Jars of Peach Preserves.

Here's a picture tutorial of my method:

After washing the peaches I score them with 4 vertical cuts (giving 8 sections). If they are still on the pit I start cutting horizontally. The pieces tend to fall off the pit quite nicely. I can chop any that are too big. Some fall off after the horizontal cuts (see photo below) but they are easily chunked up into small pieces.