If your using regular pectin, its crital to have te exact amount of liquid and sugar. A good meaurin cup, or an accurate weight scale can be a help. Also, f pectin is used, check its expiration date. Most only have a couple of years of life. Once older you would probably need triple the amount of old pectin to get a set. I like the cold dish test. Take a small dish or plate, place in the freezer a couple of minutes. Pour a small spoonful onto the cold and back ito the freezer a minute. Take it out and see if its jelly yet. If not, you gotta work fast, either add more sugar or pectin, boil a minute and retest. If you don't get it in three tries, consider it a sauce or syrup. Citus based jellies and jams take up to a month or two to set fully.

> Do all newbies have this many questions? You bet! Some of us had WAY more. Luckily, people here are very generous with their answers! Don't worry, it won't be long before you are answering queries yourself. Sounds like you've had access to lots of good peaches where you are! Zabby P.S. your comment about the apple butter reminds me of one time when I was travelling with my BF and we stopped at a rural "roadside cafe" kind of place to eat. From where we were sitting we could see a shelf of what seemed to be local food products for sale --- bottles of hot sauce, jams & jellies, etc. We also saw some jars of something dark and sludge-like; we were too far away to read the label. I said, "Is that apple butter?" and BF said, "I think it's barbecue sauce." When we went up to pay, we took a closer look, and cracked up because the label actually said "Apple Butter Barbecue Sauce." Kind of your double-sludge item! ;-) Zabby

bluejean, here is one I have used in the past, although I'm trying to get away from commercial pectin, it is NOT my friend. I think when/if I make it again, I'd try to get some of the seeds out of the raspberries, but that's just a personal like/dislike. Peach and Raspberry Jam Recipe 1 quart fresh raspberries (I think you could use frozen) 2 lbs ripe peaches (approx) 1/4 cup lemon juice 6 cups sugar 1 package liquid fruit pectin 10 half pints Crush berries and remove some seeds if desired. Peel,pit and crush peaches. Measure berries and add enough crushed peaches to make 4 cups fruit. Place in kettle, add lemon juice and sugar, mixing throughly. Bring to a full rolling boil over high heat and let boil hard for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, add pectin, stirring vigorously. Stir and skim alternately for about 5 minutes. Ladle quickly into hot jars. Process 10 minutes in boiling water bath. Annie

Agreed with the others, the lemon juice is required. So far, my favorite peach jam that I've done is one that I came up with using some reduced chardonnay, Chambord (French black-raspberry liqueur) and Pomona's pectin so I can do a lower sugar, as our CO peaches are very sweet. The alcohol flavors don't come across in major amounts, but intensify the total flavor of the jam. Chambord is a big investment for occasional use, but I've found it to be worth my while, as it's my favorite for adding to jams/sorbets. I found a half sized bottle at my local Target for $15 that has lasted me for well over a year now. If you like the flavor of Amaretto, I would say that it would go well with either the peach/rasp or your spiced peach. I use liqueur in most of my jams, not necessarily for the alcohol's flavor, but find that it deepens the flavor as a whole. I generally add 1-2 Tbsp for a batch that makes 4-6 half-pints.