On Sunday I made peach-vanilla jam using some peaches from the farmer’s market. This was my first time making jam so I had Natalie coaching me through the process. Here are some pictures of the process:
Step 1: Chop up the peaches after the skins have been removed
Step 2: add 5 cups of sugar
Step 3: Mix the peaches and sugar
Step 4: Prepare the vanilla beans
Step 5: Bring the mixture to a boil, then simmer for about 20 minutes
Step 6: Prepare the jars. Boil water and put jars and lids in the pot to sterilize them
Step 7: Once jam has simmered for about 20 minutes, add it to the hot jars
Step 8: Put jam filled jars back in the boiling water for about 10 minutes
Step 9: Remove jars and wait for the lids to pop, the lids all popped meaning the jam was preserved in the jars.
I used the recipe from the Blue Book of Preserving as a guide, but modified it just a bit by adding a vanilla bean, cinnamon, more peaches, less sugar, and more pectin.
Yield: about 7 half-pints
1 qt finely chopped, pitted, peeled peaches
5 cups sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 pouches liquid pectin
1 vanilla bean
3 cinnamon sticks
Combine fruit, sugar, and lemon juice in a large saucepan. Bring slowly to a boil, stirring until sugar dissolves. Stir in liquid pectin. Return to a rolling boil. Boil hard 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Skim foam if necessary. Ladle hot jam into hot jars, leaving about 1/4 inch headspace. Adjust two-piece caps. Process 10 minutes in a boiling-water canner.
From Seed to Table 