When fresh peaches are abundant in summer, do yourself a big favor and snatch them up for jam-making. No special ingredients or equipment for canning — you can make jam with just the fruit, lemon, and sugar at home.
The Peach Jam is one of the best preserves and is easy to prepare at home! Genuine, fragrant, and rich in taste. A few steps and you will enclose in a jar all the color and flavor of summer peaches, so as to enjoy them even in winter for breakfast or snack: in a delicious tart or simply spread on slices of bread.
| 1 kg = 35 oz. of peaches (net weight of waste, about 1.5 kg=52 oz. with stone and peel) 500 gr =2 ½ cups of granulated sugar (or 550 gr=2 ¾ cups of brown sugar) 2 small lemons (juice and peel) |
First of all wash the peaches, dry them, peel them, and remove the core and possibly the rotten or soft pieces. Cut them into pieces.
Marinate the peaches for a minimum of 3h to a maximum of 1 day: place the fruit in a bowl with sugar, the whole peels of lemons, and filtered juice of lemons. Turn well.
Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge. This operation is essential so that you have a fragrant peach jam, but also dense and full-bodied without the addition of pectin. During the marinating phase, the lemon peel will release it naturally.
After the marinating time, the peaches will have flavored, the sugar will have melted and the bowl will be filled with liquid.
Remove the lemon peels and transfer the peaches and liquid to a large pot
Place the pot on low heat and start cooking. Do not be tempted to raise the fire. You do not speed up the times but you only risk burning the fruit!
Then let it boil gently for about 1 hour – 1 hour and a half, always taking care to turn from time to time.
When you see that the liquid starts to halve it’s time to lower the fire further! The fruit must pamper itself when cooked very slowly otherwise it browns and you will get a dark-colored jam.
Peach jam is ready when the pieces are still visible, with a minimum of liquid
At this point, if you prefer a peach jam in pieces, you can consider whether to cook it a little more on fire so that it clumps and pots directly.
If, on the other hand, you prefer a peach jam without pieces and more velvety, like the one bought, you can pass the jam with a vegetable mill or immersion blender.
Then place on very low heat, so that it clumps a little more, turning constantly until you get a jam that remains on the spoon.
When the jam is still boiling, place it in the sterilized jars up to the neck of the jar. Close with a cap.
Here is the Peach Jam ready to be savored. Put the bottles in a separate pot with rags or paper and boil them for 30 minutes.
When the bottles are cold, take them out, and put them upside down for an hour.
Then you can store your peach jam jars: excellent simply on slices of bread, accompany cheeses of all kinds, you can use peach jam in many preparations.
Fruit Jam Without Pectin
Many fruit jams are made with the addition of pectin for thickening, but fruit jams can be made with just fresh fruit, lemon juice, and sugar. Jam made without pectin is a little softer and looser than jam made with pectin, but learning this technique means that you can make jam at almost any time with ingredients you probably have on hand.
Clean canning or storage jars are recommended for storing this jam.
The resulting jam is fruit-forward, sweet, and full of flavor. It will make you feel like a kitchen superhero every time you open a jar. Have a look also at our Quince Jelly or Mandarins’ Marmelade
Last suggestion:
keep the peach kernels in a basket and when you go on a trip in the green, in the countryside throw the kernels here and there to give birth to new plants. New trees are always important!
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