I think peach & raspberry would be good flavors together. Or ginger & peach.

I made plain peach jam. Now I'm wishing I had been a little more creative!

Lori

I've made the Brown Sugar Rum Peach Jam...it's devine!

and last year made Nancy's (I think) Chunky Peach preserves...yummmy too..I love the chunks!

Here is a link that might be useful: Harvest Jam thread

The Brown Sugar Rum sounds like a good combo.
I've done some searches, but haven't found the recipe for Nancy's chunky peach preserves. Could you post it?

Ginger sounds good too but I'd prefer a tried and true recipe to one from a search. Mainly looking for an idea on how much ginger to be good but not overwhelming.

This is it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Peach Preserves

For a simple preservation method beyond jam and preserves.... If you have a dehydrator, make some peach leather (aka fruit roll-ups). Fruit (and vegetable) leathers are wonderful to use as a base for sauces (melt by adding some water or other liquid). They're not just for snacking. I keep all kinds of fruit and vegetable leathers in the freezer.

I use the recipe in the link below - mixing peaches and mangos. You'll also find recipes for jam/preserves at the National Center for Home Food Preservation.

-Grainlady

Here is a link that might be useful: National Center for Home Food Preservation / Mango Leather

Here are a couple that I have saved....

Peach Jam With Brown Sugar and Rum
Makes 6 half pints
6 cups frozen peach slices, thawed (I used fresh)
2 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
6 tablespoons strained fresh lemon juice (2 lemons)
3/4 cup dark rum, preferably Jamaican (divided)
2 cups granulated sugar
Wash 6 half-pint jars and keep hot until needed. Prepare the lids as manufacturer directs. Combine the peaches with the brown sugar, lemon juice and about half of the rum in a large pot and stir the mixture well. Stir well, cover and refrigerate overnight.
Pour the fruit mixture into large, heavy-bottomed pot and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Cover the pan, reduce the heat and simmer until the fruit chunks start turning translucent, 15 to 20 minutes, stirring several times. If the jam becomes too thick before the fruit clarifies, add 2 or 3 tablespoons water.
Add the granulated sugar and cook the jam rapidly over medium-high heat, stirring almost constantly, until a spoonful placed on a chilled saucer and refrigerated for a few moments wrinkles instead of running when the saucer is tilted sharply. (Remove the pot from the heat while testing.) Stir in the remaining rum and cook the jam for 2 minutes, stirring.
Ladle the boiling-hot jam into 1 hot jar at a time, leaving 1/4-inch headspace. Wipe the rim with a clean, damp cloth. Attach the lid. Fill and close the remaining jars. Process for 10 minutes in a boiling-water canner.
-- Adapted from "Fancy Pantry" by Helen Witty (Sharon Maasdam)
********************************************************

Peach Amaretto Butter
Suzytwo on the CF
6 cups peaches, peeled and chopped (about a dozen peaches)
2 cups sugar
1 cup Amaretto
Puree peaches in a food processor or blender until smooth.
In a large stainless steel or enamel saucepan combine peach puree and sugar. Bring to a hard boil, stirring constantly, reduce to a simmer, cover and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring often.
Add Amaretto and simmer for at least 5 minutes and until the desired thickness is reached. This will not thicken up past where you take it to. Ladle into half pint jars leaving 1/4 inch head space. Process in a boiling water bath 15 minutes.

About four years ago I went on a peach jam kick one summer. Annie and I got together and we made plain peach preserves, peach conserve (with nuts and raisins and I think there was citrus rind involved and maybe ginger) All were good. I've also made peach melba (peach and raspberry) and peach maple. I have yet to try peach chutney, but I have the recipe, so maybe this year. I have the peach raspberry and peach maple recipes so I could post if you like. The peach conserve came out of the Ball Blue Book I think, and the peach chutney recipe I have but got from Katie C. The peach raspberry I found on the net and the Peach Maple comes from the book "Summer in a Jar" by Andrea Chessman.

I don't have raspberries. I'd like the peach maple and peach conserve recipes or any peach ginger recipe. I made peach chutney last year and we haven't been that crazy about it so I'd rather make something else.

I'll probably do the brown sugar rum one and one other. I'm saving others for next year.

I like fruit leather - especially peach or apricot, but I don't have a dehydrator. My Miele oven has a dehydrate setting but it doesn't run with the door open so I'm not sure how well the dehydrate works. If I try it, it will be with a very small batch. Is it worth trying?

The brown sugar rum..is great as a glaze on meats too..I like it on pork, but it's good on chicken too..I often wonder, but haven't done it, if one could add some ketchup or tomato sauce and a few other things and come up with a BBQ sauce.

Oh and there is always peach salsa..is it KatieC, Carol or Annie that had one floating around. I have a copy I printed off a few years back and keep meaning to make it when the peaches start coming in...

But haven't yet..

Ahaaahaaaaa Katie..From the Harvest Forum..

Posted by guysmom z9CA (My Page) on Mon, Jul 6, 09 at 12:50

I made the apricot salsa using the KatieC's recipe for Peach Salsa. I just subbed the apricots for the peaches. It looks so pretty!! We tasted some before canning it up and it was yummy. We could tell it would probably be spicer after canning. Thanks again for the help.

Lpinkmountain here is the recipe for KatieC's Peach Salsa.
Peach Salsa
Recipe By :Katie
Serving Size : 0 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories : Preserving
Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
6 cups peaches -- diced
1 1/4 cups red onion -- chopped
4 jalapeno peppers -- chopped
1 red bell pepper -- chopped
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro -- loosely packed
1/2 cup white vinegar
2 tablespoons honey -- or sugar
3 cloves garlic -- finely chopped
2 teaspoons cumin
1/2 teaspoon cayenne

Simmer for 5 minutes. Pack into hot jars and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes (0-1000 ft.), 15 minutes (1001-6000 ft.), and 20 minutes (above 6000 ft.).
Katie HF

KatieC's Peach Salsa is a slightly tweaked version of a Bernardin (Canadian arm of Ball preserving) recipe. Those of you who have the Ball or Bernardin Complete Book of Home Preserving can see the original recipe.

The Peach-Brown Sugar Jam benefits from aging. Give it a couple of months and it will mellow considerably. It's the rum - think of it as the jam version of fruitcake.

I think I also posted a Mango-Lime version of that same preserve. Kind of Caribbean with the rum and brown sugar.

Carol

Yeah, that's what I mean, peach salsa, not peach chutney. Here's my Peach Maple Jam recipe. It's a lower sugar, cooked jam (as opposed to the pectin kind) so it doesn't keep too well once opened, so I put it up in small jars. Keeps fine until opened, just doesn't have a long fridge life. I've eaten it two years after putting it up and it is fine. With this jam, it is so yummy I usually don't have to worry about it languishing in the fridge. But even with the best of jams, I can only eat it so fast being single. That's why the largest jam size I ever do is 1/2 pint.

Peach Maple Jam recipe from "Summer in a Jar" by Andrea Chessman

5 lbs. peaches
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 cup pure maple syrup
1 tsp. cinnamon

Yields about 10 half pints.

Blanch the peaches in boiling water to cover for 1 minute to loosen the skins. Drain, cool and peel. Remove the pits and chop the peaches very finely. You can use a food processor.

In a large nonaluminum pot, combine the peaches, lemon juice, maple syrup and cinnamon. Bring to a boil and gently boil for 10 minutes until thick. The jam is ready when it begins to hold its shape when dropped onto a cold plate.

Skim off any foam on the surface and ladle into hot, sterilized jars, (1/2 pint or 6 oz.), leaving 1/2 inch head space. Seal. Process in a boiling water bath for 5 minutes to seal.

(NOTE: I find that I have to cook these jams much longer than the recipe says to get them to firm up. I use the cold plate method to test them, it seems to me to work better than using a thermometer to test for the jell stage).

Cold plate test method - Put a small plate in the freezer. I use two so I can test a couple of times rotating cold plates. You have to leave the plates in there a while to get cold, (at least about 1-5 min. so put the plates in before you start with the jam). When you think the jam is about ready (after the time the recipe says has passed or it is starting to sheet when dropped from a spoon) (sheet means fall off the spoon in gloppy sheets instead of little drips), then put a tsp. of jam onto the cold plate and put back into the freezer for 1 min. Turn the jam down a bit that's cooking in the pot on the stove so you don't burn it to the bottom of the pot while waiting for the stuff in the freezer. After a minute take the plate with the jam out of the freezer and run your finger down the middle. If the two sides don't quickly run together and fill in the line you have made down the middle, the jam is ready. If it fills in moderately fast, cook just a smidge longer. If the two jam islands stay relatively separate, your jam is ready. It's an art not a science, but you're basically cooling the jam on the plate in the freezer to be able to tell how thick it will be once cooled in the jars. You can also tilt the plate and see how long it takes the jam to run down the plate. If it stays as a relatively intact blob, the jam is ready. The reason I say "relatively" in my description is you want jam, not fruit leather or hard candy, lol!

Actually I use a combo of methods. I use the thermometer to tell me when it is getting close to the jell stage, and then start cold plate testing it. But be aware that just in general this is a somewhat runny jam. Not overly so. But if you're used to the jello type commercial stuff, this has a "softer set" as they say. I've given it as gifts and had an enthusiastic "thumbs up."

I mostly use Readinglady's old fashioned Peach Preserve recipe, that and her Pear Preserve are my favorite preserve recipes, just plain and simple fruit and I cut the sugar down about half successfully. I love the stuff.

Here is the Peach Conserve recipe that lpinkmountain and I made the summer we spent jammin':
Peach Conserve

4 cups prepared fruit (buy about 2-1/2 lb. fully ripe peaches or you can substitute plums)
1-1/2 tsp. grated orange zest
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup finely chopped PLANTERS Walnuts
1 box SURE.JELL Fruit Pectin
1/2 tsp. butter or margarine
6 cups sugar, measured into separate bowl

Pit and finely chop peeled peaches. Measure exactly 4 cups prepared fruit into 6- or 8-qt. saucepot. Stir in orange peel, juice and walnuts.

STIR pectin into prepared fruit in saucepot. Add butter to reduce foaming. Bring mixture to full rolling boil (a boil that doesn't stop bubbling when stirred) on high heat, stirring constantly. Stir in sugar. Return to full rolling boil and boil exactly 1 min., stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Skim off any foam with metal spoon.

LADLE immediately into prepared jars, filling to within 1/8 inch of tops. Wipe jar rims and threads. Cover with two-piece lids. Screw bands tightly. Place jars on elevated rack in canner. Lower rack into canner. (Water must cover jars by 1 to 2 inches. Add boiling water, if necessary.) Cover; bring water to gentle boil. Process 10 min. Remove jars and place upright on a towel to cool completely. After jars cool, check seals by pressing middles of lids with finger. (If lids spring back, lids are not sealed and refrigeration is necessary.)

Here is the Ginger Peach I made, I'd add more ginger.

Ginger Peach Preserves

4-1/2 cups prepared fruit (buy about 3-1/4 lb. fully ripe peaches)
1/4 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger
1 box SURE.JELL Fruit Pectin
1/2 tsp. butter or margarine
5-1/2 cups sugar, measured into separate bowl

PEEL and pit peaches; finely chop or grind fruit. Measure exactly 4-1/2 cups prepared fruit into 6- or 8-qt. saucepot. Stir in ginger.

STIR pectin into prepared fruit in saucepot. Add butter to reduce foaming. Bring mixture to full rolling boil (a boil that doesn't stop bubbling when stirred) on high heat, stirring constantly. Stir in sugar. Return to full rolling boil and boil exactly 1 min., stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Skim off any foam with metal spoon.

LADLE immediately into prepared jars, filling to within 1/8 inch of tops. Wipe jar rims and threads. Cover with two-piece lids. Screw bands tightly. Place jars on elevated rack in canner. Lower rack into canner. (Water must cover jars by 1 to 2 inches. Add boiling water, if necessary.) Cover; bring water to gentle boil. Process 10 min. Remove jars and place upright on towel to cool completely. After jars cool, check seals by pressing middles of lids with finger. (If lids spring back, lids are not sealed and refrigeration is necessary.)

And finally, one of my favorites from a poster here, Doris' Peach Jam for Cold Mornings. Thanks Doris, where ever you are out there!

ORANGE/PEACH/HABANERO JAM
(Jam for Cold Mornings)

3 lbs. ripe peaches, peeled and quartered
medium sized orange, quartered and seeded
2 habaneros, seeds and all
4 cups sugar
¼ tsp almond extract
¾ cup honey

Combine peaches, sugar and honey in a dutch oven, stir well. Cover and let stand 45 minutes. In food processor chop oranges and habaneros until finally chopped, scraping down sides a couple of times. Place orange, habaneros and an equal amount of water in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes.

Bring peach mixture to a boil over medium heat, stirring until sugar dissolves. Increase heat to medium high and cook, uncovered, 15 minutes, stirring often. Add orange mixture. Bring to a boil, cook, uncovered 20 to 25 minutes or until a candy thermometer registers 221F, stirring often. Remove from heat, stir in almond extract. Skim off foam with metal spoon.

Quickly pour hot mixture into hot jars, leaving ¼ inch headspace, wipe jar rims. Cover with lids and Process in boiling water bath 10 minutes.

Yield: 6 half pints

Happy Jamming!

Annie

Yeah but Annie didn't we add some ginger to that recipe because you liked it so much? Believe it or not I just had some of it last week in MI. My mom had it in the fridge for a while and I had opened it when I was home for Christmas. It had turned brown but still tasted relatively good, 2.75 years later! They don't call them "preserves" for nothing! :)

Now I wish I had more peaches - so many recipes to choose from. I think I'll make the maple one and the brown sugar rum one this time. I've saved others for next year.

For next year, is it possible to make the peach conserve without pectin? I prefer to make jams without pectin especially since the pectin versions all call for so much sugar.

Oh, and I forgot fruit syrup for pancakes and waffles. I like peach syrup on gingerbread pancakes, yummy.

L, did we add ginger? I also think we may have added either white currants or dried cherries? A dried fruit of some kind?

I agree, jams/jellies/preserves will last for years. Maybe decades. It'll still be good but the quality deteriorates. First the color, as lpinkmountain mentioned, then the flavor.

It'll still be safe, but not worth eating, LOL.

Annie

Sure you can make the conserve without pectin. However, having made Doris's Peach Jam for Cold Mornings, I'd probably turn that into a conserve instead. It's very close to the SureJell recipe, but I know the odds of a nice set are good, especially with the orange as opposed to the juice.

Doris's recipe would also have more character and with the honey and orange would be excellent with walnuts. Delete the habs. I'd also leave out the almond extract. Stir in 1/2 cup TOASTED walnuts. Toasting not only enhances flavor but they hold up much better in a conserve. The nuts will retain firmness.

I would try the recipe with the original amount of sugar first and then gradually reduce in future batches. At some point reducing the sugar will compomise the set unless you overcook.

Carol

I just had some of the Peach Maple jam and thought I should report on my results so far.

Yesterday, I put one baking sheet of peach leather in the oven. I only did one because I wasn't sure how my oven would do at dehydrating. I pureed 2 cups of peaches plus a 1/2 tsp of fresh mashed ginger. It was dry this morning. It's really good and I wish I had more peaches to put a whole batch in the oven. Next time I would use maybe half that amount of ginger because the flavor is a little too dominant. Also, I would try to time it to put it in the oven not much before bedtime. I had put it in in the late afternoon and of course it wasn't done by the time I went to sleep but got a little more dried than ideal before I woke up this morning.

The National Center for Home Preservation website says to use plastic wrap to line the pan and not aluminum foil or wax paper. They don't mention parchment paper and I was wondering if I could use that for drying fruit leather. It is a bit of a pain to get the plastic wrap down without wrinkles and plastic in the oven creeps me out a bit even though it worked fine.

The Peach Maple jam isn't quite what I expected (though looking at the recipe perhaps I should have realized that). It came out more like peach sauce (meaning a peach equivalent of apple sauce, not a peach sauce you would pour over your ice cream). It is slow flowing and not runny but it doesn't have a jelled texture at all. I could see eating a dish of it. I guess that's because the sugar is so low - less than a quarter cup of maple syrup per pound of fruit. It's good but I think it could use another name. It would be really good with pancakes like one has apple sauce with potato pancakes.

The peaches for the rum brown sugar recipe are macerating in the fridge and I'll make that tonight.

Annie it did have raisins so I'm pretty sure it has ginger too.

Sorry Cloudswift I tried to warn you about the "softer set" of no-pectin jams. I just like the flavor better so that's what I mostly do. You could cook it longer than 10 min. to thicken it a bit. But a cooked preserve will never have the "jell" of a pectin jam. But I almost always cook them longer than the recipe says. One of the reasons the cooking times vary is it depends on the efficiency of the pot you have. I was amazed at how quickly Annie's cool jam pot evaporates out the water compared to what I normally use, my ratty old stainless pot. I can' remember the kind she has but I had jam pot envy that's for sure. The only problem with these lower sugar preserves is you have to kind of get a "feel" for when they are done. Also kind of just get used to eating your toast very carefully so the jam doesn't run off, lol! It's a fine line between just right and either too runny or too stiff with these types of jams, which is why I think they are the best--they're a real challenge but the results are mighty fine.

I also love the peach maple jam on waffles with vanilla yogurt. That's the most common thing I do with my jams that come out a little too runny. Annie says Ashley just dips her toast in jam to solve the problem. I eat mostly english muffins that kinda have a little lip on them to keep the jam in, plus those holes. Just eat it on substantial bread held upright, and you will grow to love it! :)

Pinkmountain, I'm pretty sure that it wasn't due to the lack of pectin. I made apricot jam and Christine Ferbers' mint pepper strawberry preserves both without pectin and they still have a jam feel. The strawberry recipe had 4 parts sugar to 5 parts fruit by weight and I used a bit less sugar to fruit in the apricot jam. Both had a kind of soft set, but they had a set. The jam for cold mornings and the brown sugar rum are also around that ratio - somewhere between 5 and 6 parts fruit to 4 parts sugars.

The maple peach that I made isn't runny and it will stay on the bread but the texture is in a different class. It is solid enough to stay where I put it but it doesn't have any "set". My husband tried it without being told what it was and referred to it as peach butter. It has one part sugar in the form of maple syrup to about 10 cups peaches. It is good and I'm not sorry that I made it but I would tend to call it something other than peach jam. I'd call it peach sauce like apple sauce except that people might think that meant it was a syrup. Maybe peach butter - I'm not sure what makes a fruit butter.

The acid in the maple syrup interferes with the set. It's quite different than using granulated sugar. The same would be true of a 100% honey preserve. You'd never get better than syrup with that (unless you cooked it forever and what you'd get would be viscous, but not "set.")

Peaches are low-pectin; then add maple syrup and you've got trouble. Delicious trouble, but definitely not a traditional jelled preserve.

[Of course, I'm excepting Pomona Pectin, which will jell almost anything.]

Carol

Thanks Carol. It is delicious and my husband likes it. It is nice that it is lower sugar.

I finished the brown sugar rum jam tonight. 1 pint and 4 half pints all pinged. A bit exciting when the second half of the rum goes in to the hot jam but no problems. What I licked off the spoon was so good that it is hard to believe that the flavor improves with a couple months aging. I'll have to hide it from DH for it to last that long.

I'm so glad you and your DH liked the peach rum preserve. Well, who knows? Maybe it won't last long enough to determine if aging improves it!

Carol

Hey Carol

Were you the one that posted the Peach Rum Preserve recipe originally? I don't have a CF name associated with it, I just have it saved in my Canning file.....

Alexa

cloud, I forgot to mention that you need a big pot, when you add that rum (or other liquor) to jam you get a jam volcano!

Alexa, my recipe for Peach Jam with Rum and Brown Sugar came right from the Ball Blue Book. I don't know if that's the recipe you have, or if Carol came up with an improved recipe. She often does, and I don't find the BBB to be particularly creative (or even good), although it's absolutely safe.

Carol's recipes, though, those are ALWAYS good.

Annie

I had seen that mentioned somewhere but I kind of forgot when I put in the rum. It was in a deep pot so no worries - and it didn't bubble up that high, not double. It shouldn't be surprising that alcohol suddenly introduced to something over 210 wants to vaporize immediately but sometimes we forget to think.

I put in another post asking about what makes a good jam pot. Lpink says you have one.

I answered the question about my jam pot in the other thread, along with answers to skimming and head space.

I found it very exciting the first time I added Cointreau to some plum jam, LOL.

Annie

LOL! Thanks for the warning! It hadn't occured to me that a jam volcano would result! LOL!

I will keep it in mind when I get bakc to canning after vacation :-)

A

I did post the peach jam with brown sugar and rum, but I can't take credit for that version. Originally it came from Helen Witty's Fancy Pantry (one of my all-time favorite cookbooks).

I'll have to look at the BBB version and compare. I wouldn't be surprised if they tweaked Helen Witty's recipe.

Carol