I've been wanting to learn how to make jam for a while now... So I talked my mama into coming and showing me a few tricks and tips for making good old fashioned fruit jam.
We started with a bushel of Eckert's Orchard peaches:
Then we boiled them while Mom showed me the instructions that are tucked into every box of pectin. She also warmed the jars in hot water so they'd be more ready for the hot jam we'd pour into them eventually.
The boiling water and hot peaches get dumped into a cold bath of water. This makes the peaches SUPER easy to peel, cut and pit.
(I loved working side-by-side with my mom. Love that lady!)
The whole process gets a little gooey, but it's actually really fast, and way easier than I expected.
The big time-consuming task is the boiling of the pureed, blended fruit mixture. You stand and vigilantly stir and stir and stir... and wait and wait and wait for a rolling boil.
When it is finally boiled just right, it goes right into the warm, dry jars... and while my mom has experimented with different ways to seal the jars for preserving them, including the hot water method, she has finally decided that turning the hot, lidded jam upside down to heat-seal it is the easiest way. And it has a pretty good success rate.
In fact, as much as twenty minutes after we completed this thing, she'd break into the conversation and say, "Oh, one more just sealed! Did you hear the pop?"
And that was that! They sealed themselves and I had some lovely, homemade peach jam.
TOTALLY satisfying, totally easy, and I cannot wait to go make some more. :) I'm thinking peach-raspberry... Or pink grapefruit marmalade... Or plum-pear.... The possibilities are endless!
(Thanks, mama! Loved this!)
Now pretty soon you'll have 50 half-pint jars of assorted flavors of jam in the closet, like we do. Except that, being more aesthetically capable and more sociable than I am, you'll put cute labels on them and give them away to people, like I always intend and never do. Would you like some of our homemade, wild-foraged, local North Carolina muscadine grape jelly??
ReplyDeleteLooks like fun with a totally sweet reward in the end.
ReplyDeleteI've come up with the perfect partnership--you take the photos, and I'll scrap them! If I had these photos, I might not leave my room for days!
ReplyDeleteLOVE! How awesome to make something like this with your mom. And I bet it is delicious! Thanks for a great read :)
ReplyDeleteMmmm, homemade peach jam! Wow, my mouth is watering!
ReplyDeleteI call dibs on some of your first batch of pink grapefruit marmalade! I just love jams! (Especially when they're homemade!) I'm glad you got to learn this- maybe I need to talk mom into coming out to IN to teach me how...
ReplyDeleteWOW.. This not only looks yummy. Pictures are awesome. I wished you lived closer to me..
ReplyDeleteVery nice - I made some ginger peach jam on Friday for the first time. The boys love it, and I love that it was so easy to do!
ReplyDeleteI just made some peach-raspberry jam, I recommend it!
ReplyDeleteI made raspberry jam on Saturday night. Isn't this time of year wonderful? I loved your post. Peach jam sounds so yummy.
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