Apples, Peaches, Pears and Plums

(Caveat: sorry for the jumpy camera work. I'm still learning about video.)

I think my goal is to actually can this entire poem by the end of the year. Right now I'm on the second fruit, peaches, and, well, it's been a bit bumpy. I started last weekend but, on one of those days during which you really should not be cooking, I got distracted and let the peaches burn. To be fair, this is partly the fault of what is in fact a very thin-bottomed stoneware pot. But really, I just spaced out and by the time I got back to the pot the syrup had turned dark and bitter and it was pretty much inedible.

(Some day when I don't have a million deadlines to meet I'll use this opportunity to insert a meditation on cooking and remaining present. But until then, I know you've already read the greeting card.)

I'm still trying to get the burned stuff off the bottom of the pot. Yech. That's the burned stuff to the right. The bummer is that it was ALMOST this yummy, sticky, caramel-y stuff. But T. weighed in and said, no, it's inedible, so I threw it all into the compost. Sometimes cooking is like writing: you really have to make yourself edit out the bad stuff but it's painful to lose that work!

Below are the peaches I used in the final batch. I was able to get my peaches from Frog Hollow Farms for a discounted price because a lot of them were bruised or at least half unusable. Frog Hollow will sell you discounted flats of fruit if you ask for "jammers."

I mixed 6lbs of peeled, cut fruit with 8 cups of sugar and the juice of three lemons:



Then I macerated the fruit (let it sit in the sugar-lemon mix to release the juices) for about two hours:



Here's Lizzy guarding the macerating peaches. She's wondering: why do you eat this stuff if there's no meat in it? And, hey, does that camera taste good?


Finally, it was ready:


All in all a success, except for the first batch of peaches. I've accumulated a couple of lessons in jam making over the last few weeks. First: I think that waiting for the jam to wrinkle when you put it on a cold plate overcooks the jam. I'm going to start undercooking my jam a little more. Second, I think that most jam recipes are asking for too much sugar. I think that an 80/20 fruit to sugar ratio is probably best. More sugar than that and you're obscuring the natural sweetness of ripe fruit.

I'd love your feedback and commentary.