Marla came in to work last week with a shopping bag overflowing with peaches. Several years ago, she planted a small peach tree in her front yard. She had gone to the garden center intending to purchase a cherry tree--she wanted something that would bloom and look pretty in the spring--but there were no cherry trees available. So, she took home a small peach tree instead. That next spring, the little tree didn't disappoint, she says it was covered in flowers and absolutely beautiful. What she didn't anticipate was that the tree would set fruit. A lot of fruit. Now, every summer, she has more peaches that she knows what to do with. She loads up a wheelbarrow and parks it at the end of her driveway with a sign inviting any and all to help themselves. And, she's started bringing in bagsful to the store for us to take home.
The peaches from Marla's tree are pretty small, imperfect in shape, and covered in little insect bites and other blemishes. She uses no pesticides or anything else on the tree or the fruit. These are not the picture perfect peaches you see in the grocery stores, or even at the farmer's market. But they have so much flavor--even before cutting into them, the aroma coming out of the bag just screamed PEACH. They're perfect for making jam.
The bag I brought home held about 8 pounds of fruit, so the following recipe is written for that amount of fruit. It will work well if you cut it in half or even into fourths if you want to scale it down for a smaller amount of fruit. I also used pectin in this recipe. If you want to leave the pectin out, you'll need to cook the fruit longer, and the end result will be more of a peach butter, much softer and smoother and without the chunks of fruit that remain with the pectin based recipe.
Marla's one request (condition?) was that I bring her a jar of the finished jam. Marla, I'll see you at work this weekend, jam in hand!
Peach and Vanilla Bean Jam
Makes 18 8-ounce jars
The addition of vanilla to this jam really gives a lovely backnote of flavor to the finished jam. You can use other extracts or even liqueurs in place of the vanilla, or leave it out all together.
8 pounds fresh peaches
juice of 4 lemons
7 ounces powdered pectin
8 cups granulated sugar
4 tablespoons vanilla bean paste
Bring a large stock pot of water to the boil. Remove the screw rings and lids from the canning jars. Place the jars into the boiling water in batches and submerge for 30 seconds. Remove the jars and place them upside down on a clean dish towel. Place the screw rings and lids into the boiling water and submerge for 30 seconds. Remove and place them on a clean dish towel.
Peel, pit, and chop the peaches. The classic way of peeling peaches, tomatoes, nectarines, any kind of soft-skinned fruit, is to cut a small "x" in the base of the fruit and drop them into a pot of boiling water. After a few seconds, the fruit is transferred to a bowl of ice water to shock it and stop the cooking. The surface of the fruit has cooked just enough that the skins will slip right off. But I have found a better way---or at least a way that reduces the number of pots and pans I have to clean. I use a serrated vegetable peeler. Traditional peelers don't work well on these kinds of fruits, they're just too soft and you can't press hard enough (like you would for a potato or carrot) to get the blade to cleanly cut into the skin. With a serrated peeler, the teeth on the blade grab onto the skin without needing to apply as much pressure, and the skin will just come right off. Place the peaches in a large bowl and add the lemon juice as you go to help minimize the browning that will inevitably occur as you work your way through the fruit.
Transfer the peaches to a large sauce pot or Dutch oven and mix in the pectin. Heat the peaches over medium heat, stirring regularly. As the peaches start to soften and release their juices, use a potato masher to break up the fruit, but feel free to leave chunks. Once the peaches have reached a strong boil, mix in the sugar. Continue to cook, stirring, until the peaches have returned to a strong boil that doesn't dissipate while stirring. Cook for about 1 minute longer and remove from the heat. A foam will have formed on top of the jam, be sure to spoon it off and discard. Stir in the vanilla bean paste.
(Vanilla bean paste is a pastry chef's secret weapon and one of my favorite ingredients for baking and pastries. I like to joke with my students that if a vanilla bean pod and a bottle of vanilla extract had a hot affair, then vanilla bean paste would be their love child. It has the ease of use of extract--you can measure it with a spoon and just mix it in--and all of the intensity of flavor and flecks of seeds you get from the pod. If you don't have access to the vanilla bean paste, you can substitute the same amount of vanilla extract, or one whole pod for each tablespoon of paste.)
Carefully ladle the hot jam into the prepared jars. Be sure to wipe away in drips from the mouth of the jar, and top each with a lid and screw ring. Tighten the ring down until it just feels tight, then tighten it just a bit more. But don't crank down too hard!
Return the large stock pot of water to the boil. Working in batches, transfer the jars into the pot, making sure that the tops of the jars are fully submerged under the surface of the water. When the water returns to the boil, cover the pot with a lid and set the timer for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, carefully remove the jars from the pot and place on a dry towel to cool. After a few minutes, you should hear a noticeable "plinking" sounds as the lids contract. If any of the lids have not contracted after about 30 minutes, these jars didn't seal properly. They're still safe to eat, just put them in the refrigerator and enjoy them first.
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