![]() It’s going to be unbelievably sweet, but liquid pectin won’t gel at lower sugar levels.)īring the fruit, lemon juice and pectin to a boil on the stove (but don’t add sugar yet). (If liquid pectin is all you have, add a full 7 cups of sugar to 4 cups of fruit. You can also use other brands, such as Ball Pectin.ĭon’t use liquid pectin, as it requires a lot more sugar to gel properly. I’m using Sure-Jell pectin because it’s really readily available at just about any grocery store. Place the peaches and lemon juice into a jam pot, and stir in a packet of pectin. Homemade peach jam has a beautiful orange color because the peaches were treated with lemon juice as they were cut to prevent browning. This peach jam recipe includes 1/4 cup of lemon juice, and I’ll add it to the bowl of chopped peaches now to ensure good color in the finished peach jam. Peaches tend to brown quickly once cut, and if you want a stunning orange color to your peach jam you’ll need to treat the cut fruit with lemon juice. Once peeled, chop the peaches into 1/2 inch to 1-inch pieces. Take your pick, either method is perfectly fine. On this scale, I think it’s easier to just peel them quickly with a sharp paring knife. This small-batch peach jam recipe only requires 4 cups chopped peaches, which is only 6 to 8 large peaches. This flash cooks the outside, and you can slip the peach skin off with your fingers. If I’m making a big batch, as I do when I’m canning peach pie filling, I’ll dip each peach into boiling water for about a minute before plunging them into an ice-water bath. Making peach jam starts with peeling the peaches. Stick with yellow peaches when canning peach jam, and use white peaches for freezer jams. This peach jam recipe uses added lemon juice for flavor, which may actually make it acidic enough for canning white peaches…but I wouldn’t count on it. They’re also less flavorful in general when cooked since they tend to be mild and sweet. White peaches are less acidic than yellow peaches, and may not be quite acidic enough for safe canning. If you hope to water bath can peach jam (instead of making refrigerator jam), choose yellow peaches. Both make an excellent peach jam though.Ĭhopped freestone peaches prepared for making homemade peach jam Yellow or White Peachesīelieve it or not, the color of the peaches actually matters for canning. (They also make an excellent peach wine…)įor simplicity’s sake, freestone is a lot easier to work with, and I’d choose those given the option. They aren’t great for canning peach halves, since they don’t pit cleanly, but they’re perfect for making peach jam where the fruit is cooked down anyway. These can only really be separated by cutting the flesh off with a knife, and it’s a messy proposition.Ĭlingstone peaches are often intensely sweet and flavorful, so they’re worth the extra effort. ![]() Most grocery store peaches are the bright yellow freestone peaches, full of juice and easy to separate from the pit.īackyard growers have access to clingstone peaches, which as the name suggests, clings to the pit. Freestone or clingstone, and yellow or white. When selecting peaches for jam, you’ll often have a few choices. When you stumble into fresh tree-ripened local peaches, it’s time to make something really special… They were so fresh they still had leaves attached! There are a number of zone 4 peach varieties, but no one’s really tried to grow them commercially until recently. Northern peaches are a bit of a unicorn, difficult to find, and sometimes impossible to grow, but the flavor is amazing. This year, I came late in the day and missed out…but I found something even better… Our local food coop gets a few truckloads shipped up from Pennsylvania each year, and all the home canners descend on them quickly. It’s easy to make this classic peach preserve as either a freezer jam or canning recipe.Įvery summer we pick up a case (or three) of Amish peaches and spend the day canning peaches to bring a bit of brightness into our long winter days. Peach jam is one of the best preserves of the summer.
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