To make peach jam, you cut the peeled fruit into small pieces and cook them with water. Sometimes, more fruit juice is added to this mixture to make it sweeter or to give it more flavor and liquid. The taste and color of the finished product depend on how good the peaches are and how ripe they are. Jam made from bruised or unripe fruit won’t taste good. In this article, you will find the boozy peach jam recipe.
This jam can be kept in the fridge for up to three weeks or frozen for up to a year. If it’s frozen, let it thaw in the fridge before you use it. (This jam can’t be kept on the shelf or in the pantry.) This jam tastes great on toast, crackers with cream cheese, cottage cheese, and even ice cream!
What is Peach Jam?
Peach jam is a type of preserved fruit made from the juice of peaches and pieces of the fruit itself. A typical peach jam contains a large amount of sugar and is fortified with additional pectin. Specialized versions of jam made from peaches exist for those on special diets and those who must avoid sugar. Pectin is also added, which makes the mixture thick and gel-like, which is what most people want from jams and jellies. Some fruits have enough pectin on their own to set without any extra ingredients. Peaches, however, don’t have much of their own, so they usually need extra pectin to set right. Jam can be safely stored for many months.
Peach jam may have other things added to it. They may be added to commercial products to preserve and improve color or to make the jam last longer. Some kinds of jam may also add other fruits or spices to make them taste better. Peach jam is put into jars and heated again, usually in a hot water bath, to make it thicker. This process kills microbes in a jam, so the jam won’t go bad before the jars are opened. Sugar can help keep fruit fresh because it can dry the fruit and stop bacteria from growing. The sugar in a jam, on the other hand, is usually not concentrated enough to do this.
Boozy Peach Jam Recipe
For the best jam, use fully ripe peaches. They should be soft enough to crush easily and smell strongly of peaches (a scentless peach is a tasteless peach).
Even though peaches don’t have much pectin, the homemade pectin in this recipe makes sure that the jam is thick and easy to spread without taking too long to cook. The brandy gives the taste more depth without making the fruit taste too strong. You can make the pectin extract days before making the jam and keep it in the fridge for up to a week. If you want to keep the pectin longer, you can freeze it or put it in jars. Here is the boozy peach jam recipe:
Ingredients
- 6 1/2 pounds (3 kilograms) of peaches
- 2 3/4 pounds (1/4 kilogram) sugar
- 1/4 cup (60 milliliters) of lemon juice
- 2/3 cup (160 milliliters) of homemade citrus pectin or apple pectin
- 1/2 cup (120 milliliters) brandy
Steps to Make it
- Collect the things you need.
- Bring a lot of water to a boil in a large pot.
- Wash the peaches while you wait. Cut a small “x” in the bottom of each peach with a paring knife.
- Put the peaches carefully into the boiling water. (The “gently” part is to keep you from getting splashed with boiling water, not the apricots.) Don’t try to fit them all in because you want the water to be able to move freely around the fruit. After 1 minute, take the peaches out with a slotted spoon and put them in a colander to drain. Do the same thing with the other peaches.
- The short blanching will have loosened the skins, making it easy to pull them off the peach flesh. Once you’ve peeled all the peaches, cut the flesh away from the pits and put it in a large pot. Put the peels and pits in the trash. Chop the peaches that have been peeled. Move them into a big pot.
- Mix the peaches with the sugar, lemon juice, brandy, and pectin you made yourself.
- Stir the mixture often while cooking it over high heat until it reaches the gel point. Take off the heat.
- Put the jam in clean jars for preserving (it is not necessary to sterilize the jars for this recipe). Leave 1/2 inch of space between the top of the jam and the jars’ rims. Use a damp paper or cloth towel to clean the rims of the jars (any food there could prevent a seal). Put the lids on the jars.
- For 10 minutes, put the jars of boozy peach jam in a boiling water bath (adjust the canning time if you live at a high altitude).
Tips
When the jars are sealed, they can be kept at room temperature. However, once they have been opened, they need to be held in the fridge, just like store-bought jam. If you seal the jam, it will last for a year. After that, the jam is still safe to eat but doesn’t taste as good.
If you don’t want to can the jam, you can skip that step and store it in clean glass jars (they don’t have to be canning jars) in the fridge for up to two months.
How to Tell if a Peach is Ripe?
Choose ripe peaches that don’t have any spots or folds (a sign of over-ripeness). When you press on the peaches, they should give a little bit, and the stem should smell sweet. If they are hard, don’t eat them unless you have time to let them sit out for a few days. With this method, it will be very easy to peel ripe peaches.
Pick a Perfectly Ripe Peach
Peaches are a few fruits that can ripen after being picked instead of just getting soft and going bad. This is great news for peach lovers because it means you can buy peaches in different stages of ripeness and finish ripening them at home. Here’s how to tell if a peach is just right:
Look
Peaches with yellow flesh that are ready to eat should have a golden color behind the red blush. That blush isn’t a sign that the peach is ready; it’s just where the sun hit it. This coloration is easiest to see at the end of the stem, where the peach gets the least sun. Peaches also don’t usually get a blush when they join the tree. A peach with a light yellow color is not as ripe. Avoid peaches that still look a little bit green. Also, look for bruises, scratches, or flat spots on the peaches. You don’t want any of those. Also, don’t buy peaches with wrinkled skins because they were probably kept cold for too long after they were picked and dried out.
Smell
The smell of most peaches should remind you of how you want them to taste. If your peach doesn’t smell, it probably doesn’t taste good and isn’t ready yet. Know that some kinds can taste great without having that strong peach smell. If you’re shopping at a farmers market, ask the farmer about the type of food you’re thinking about buying.
Feel
Peaches should feel heavy for their size, just like any other fruit. More specifically, you can tell a lot about how ripe peach is by how soft its flesh is. Hold the peach in the palm of your hand, lightly wrap your fingers around it, and squeeze it gently to see how hard or soft it is:
- Peaches that are as hard as a baseball should be left behind. They were picked before they were ready and will probably never get soft again.
- Peaches the size of tennis balls aren’t ready to eat yet, but they’re great to take home to ripen and eat later in the week.
- If the peach gives when you squeeze it, it can be eaten immediately or left on the counter for a day or two. These peaches are great for baking because they don’t fall apart as easily as riper ones.
- If you squeeze a soft peach, it will get a little bruised. These are already ready to eat.
- Very soft peaches are already bruised from just sitting there. They are a little too ripe, but they can still be tasty, even if they are very juicy and messy.
Can I Freeze Peach Jam?
Yes, you can! The good news is that you can freeze it right in the jar, which is even better. Leave some room at the top because it will grow slightly when it freezes. All freezer jams are more liquid than regular jams. This recipe is between a typical jam and a fruit sauce in terms of texture. It is thick enough to spread but thin enough to drizzle over ice cream.
How Long does Homemade Peach Jam Last in the Fridge?
If you open a jam jar, it’s best to use it within 10 to 14 days. If your homemade food is sealed and hasn’t been opened, it should last between 1 and 3 months in the fridge. It should last about a year in the freezer. The peach jam kept in the fridge all the time will usually be at its best for about a year. Homemade jam should be kept in a cool, dry place that is out of direct sunlight and used within a year of being made. Once the jar has been opened, it should be kept in the fridge and used within a month. We think you should throw away any jam jars with mold growing.
What is the Difference Between Peach Jam and Peach Preserves?
There isn’t much to choose between the two. The same flavor is there. The only real difference is that the peaches are crushed for jam, but the fruit is left whole for preserves. So the preserves will have a bit more of a chunky texture. This is true for all fresh fruit, not just peaches.
Fresh peaches and sugar are used to make peach preserves that taste sweet. Cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves are often added to spice up the flavor. Peaches don’t last long, so this is one of the few ways to enjoy them out of season. You can eat the peach preserves themselves, use them to make other peach dishes, or eat them with cakes, pies, ice cream, jams, sandwiches, and cereals.
Peach jam usually has a lot of sugar, but there are also versions with less sugar. Artificial sweeteners can be used to make the jam taste sweeter. If you make jam at home, you might want to make a few small batches with different sweeteners to see which one you like best. When making low-sugar jam at home, people should be careful when buying pectin because some types of pectin need sugar to work right.
Other sweet juices can be used instead of sugar to make all-natural peach jam. Pectin should be used most of the time, though, to make sure the jam sets properly. Most pectin comes from fruit and is extracted. It is not usually thought of as a chemical food additive.
