Peach Jam

Back in August when Michigan peaches finally ripened, my sisters and I spent an afternoon turning our ½ bushel of Red Haven peaches into jam. We had fun working together and have really enjoyed the fruits of our labor. J

The peaches washed and ready to go. You can see the canning lids sterilizing in the bowl of water in the background.

The canning jars had also been sterilized and were waiting by the stove.

First, we boiled a big stock pot of water. We put in 4 or 5 peaches at a time and let them boil for 1-2 minutes. Then I pulled them out and dumped them in a sink full of ice water and let them sit in the water for about the same amount of time. We pulled them out and peeled, pitted, and chopped them.

A peeled and pitted peach.

Our island served as our workstation. Here you can see the peaches drying after their ice bath, the twins peeling, pitting, and chopping the peaches, and the stockpot where we put all the chopped peaches.

As you can see, our station was quite messy with all of that peach juice! But we knew it would be worth it in the end.

I love the beautiful colors of the Red Haven peaches! They have a reddish tint to them, hence the name.

Then we put the stock pot on the stove to cook down the peaches.

After we cooked them down, we added sugar and cooked again until it thickened. Unfortunately, while the peaches were cooking down the first time, I went upstairs for too long and as I came back down, I was met with the unpleasant odor of scorched peaches. I raced to the stove, afraid that I had ruined the whole batch. I had indeed burned the bottom pretty badly. I poured the good peaches into a different pot and threw away the badly burned pieces. But with the only slightly burnt ones, I added some sugar to taste and decided to keep it as a topping for waffles and ice cream. It turned out quite well and they didn’t all go to waste, thankfully.

The finished product! Isn’t it such a pretty color? We’ve been enjoying the jam very much and look forward to eating it later during the colder months when fresh fruit is harder to come by.