Lisa, if your fruit was hard like that and not juicy and really ripe it will be more firm jam or jelly. The greener the fruit the more natural pectin it has and will be a more firm product. This is why we teach people to use a mix of really ripe and some a bit more green in a batch of jam. This seems to be important with strawberry jam more so than some other types, in my experience. I just want to encourage you to not give up !!! You will be able to do this. It sounds as though the peaches were not ripe and juicy enough to get the liquid you needed. You do add the sugar all at once when using the powd. pectin. Normally it will dissolve and mix in with the liquid part in the pan, but since you didn't have the right amount of juice it just started burning. It does depend upon how ripe the fruit is how thick or thin the jam will be. Using fresh, tree picked fruit is ideal, but I do agree, that frozen may be better than what you used. Well, you are way to far away for me to help in person, or I would try to do more to help. Can you find a friend or someone who could help you through this in person ? If you try to cut down on sugar in a recipe with pectin it will not gel. You need to use the recipe for each type and brand of pectin. I prefer the powd. pectin. If you want a low or no sugar jam, learn to use Pomona's Universal pectin. It will gel water. Really it takes no sugar at all to gel. It is different to work with and may take a time or so to get comfortable with it. I am diabetic and use it for my jams for myself. My husband likes it when I make his with SureJel and use the sugar. So, I make both kinds here. You have learned to not double recipes, however, with Pomonas you can double and triple. You normally have to mail order the pectin from them. They sell in bulk, too. Not just boxes, but they have boxes, too. They even have a helpline you can call. The nicest folks there !! You can even create your own recipes with the stuff. They include recipes and instructions. Check out the link below to help you. You can click and see the recipes, too. http://www.pomonapectin.com/ You will not get crystal clear jelly with it, but you want jam, anyway. Doesn't matter to me if it is clear or not, even with jelly. I am not entering it in the fair, it is to eat. Each type of homemade jellied product have a different description. I am also sending you the link to all kinds of good info. Types of Jellied Products Jelly, jam, preserves, conserves and marmalades are fruit products that are jellied or thickened. Most are preserved by sugar. Their individual characteristics depend on the kind of fruit used and the way it is prepared, the proportions of different ingredients in the mixture and the method of cooking. Jellies are usually made by cooking fruit juice with sugar. (Some are made without cooking using special uncooked jelly recipes.) A good product is clear and firm enough to hold its shape when turned out of the container, but quivers when the container is moved. When cut, it should be tender yet retain the angle of the cut. Jelly should have a flavorful, fresh, fruity taste. Jams are thick, sweet spreads made by cooking crushed or chopped fruits with sugar. Jams tend to hold their shape but are generally less firm than jelly. (Recipes are also available for uncooked jams.) Preserves are small, whole fruit or uniform size pieces in a clear, slightly gelled syrup. The fruit should be tender and plump. Conserves are jam-like products that may be made with a combination of fruits. They also contain nuts, raisins or coconut. Marmalades are soft fruit jellies containing small pieces of fruit or peel evenly suspended in the transparent jelly. They often contain citrus fruit. Other fruit products that are preserved by sugar but not jellied include butters, honeys and syrups. Fruit butters are sweet spreads made by cooking fruit pulp with sugar to a thick consistency. Spices are often added. Honeys and syrups are made by cooking fruit juice or pulp with sugar to the consistency of honey or syrup. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This document was adapted from "So Easy to Preserve", 5th ed. 2006. Here is a link that might be useful: Univ. of Georgia on jams, jellies, etc.

Thanks! I ended up making a special trip to the store - just to be sure. Here's my recipe, which I've been using for a few years now. My kids love it!: http://proverbsthirtyonewoman.blogspot.com/2012/04/making-dandelion-jelly.html Here is a link that might be useful: Dandelion Jelly Recipe

I'm another non-fan of Pomona's for the reason Robin mentioned, but it does have its advocates and only you can decide which camp you fall into. Non-commercial pectin jams use less sugar than commercial pectin jams but a certain amount of sugar is necessary to assure a jell. It's a fine balance of fruit, sugar and acid. Cutting the sugar is possible but at some point the mixture will either not jell or you'll evaporate out the water and end up with a thick viscous mixture like tar. Annie routinely reduces the sugar in something like pear preserves; with each batch she reduced more until she hit a point where it wasn't possible to further reduce and get even a soft set. But since each batch of fruit varies (especially from season to season) with traditional preserving there's always an element of "mystery" as to how the preserves will respond. You can improve the odds by adding citrus pulp and seeds, as Robin mentioned. You can also make your own natural citrus or apple pectin base. And yes, you can definitely experiment with assurance of safety as long as you avoid the low-acid peppers and such. You can do a simple (and cheap) alcohol test to determine the pectin level of the fruit in any given batch. I usually don't bother unless I'm developing a new recipe and working with fruit that has marginal pectin. A search online will bring up lots of sites that explain how to do it, but you can also ask here if you're interested. You can also get a refractometer or jelmeter, which will help you measure the sugar in the fruit. Knowing the level of natural sugar helps you determine how much additional sugar is needed. Jelmeters are no longer manufactured, though Jamlady mentions them. But they do occasionally turn up on ebay. They were in common use during WWII because women making preserves could then reduce the sugar. Lee Valley Tools sells a refractometer. But that probably goes beyond what you want to get into right now. Carol Here is a link that might be useful: Refractometer

I don't remember the name of the pectin I used, but it is NOT Smucker's. I still have the Smucker's in my pantry and checked their recipe and it's different. All I remember, is that it was a name brand. I'll buy some more pectin this weekend in case I find some fruit on sale. All the pectin's are in the same place in a grocery store. Just go to a big store so they'll have more than one brand. The Smucker's box says "Fruit Pectin - no sugar needed" and the brand I used said about the same thing. Hope you have fun like I did. Monica