Peaches.... and the byproducts

I've been wanting to do some canning this year... something, anything.  Made some strawberry/rhubarb jam earlier.  It turned out great, but too much sweet, not enough rhubarb.  The recipe called for 8.5 cups of fruit (4.25 cups each), and 10 cups of sugar.  No way.  I cut it down to 8 cups, and it was still too sweet. 

This lead me to a search for low sugar recipes, and eventually lead me to Pomona's Universal Pectin, which reacts with calcium powder (included in the package) to cause the set, instead of sugar. Click the link.

I made my next batch of jam using Pomona's Pectin.  Blueberry jam using honey as the sweetener.  Blueberry nectar.  Delicious but it didn't set well, more like a syrup.  But it set loose after a few days, and set hard in the fridge. Looking back, I didn't let it cook down enough and hadn't learned the "Sheeting Test" or 220 degrees temp. Gonna make each of these again in the near future.

Anyway, this post is about Peaches.  

 

I did a bunch of stuff yesterday, and had all these peels and pits left over.  LG heard about Peach Pit and Peel jelly and went home to find a recipe, and came back unsuccessful.  She said, "You have the internet, look it up." which was a brilliant idea.  duh.

Pits Peels in a Pot

Strained and ready to go

Found one and adapted it.  This recipe is based off how much juice you get out of your pits and peels.  It produces a light, elegant peach flavor jelly.

Like I said, it uses Pomona’s Universal Pectin that uses calcium water to “set up”, and not sugar, so you are able to use Tablespoons of sugar, not Cups of sugar.  Taste the fruit, not the sugar (I just made that up... gonna sell it to Pomona's).

 

PEACH PIT PEEL JELLY

Save pits and peels and barely cover them with water in a large pot.  Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes.  Let stand overnight.  Strain thru a wet cheesecloth. DO NOT SQUEEZE.  Squeezing produces cloudy juice and jelly... like mine.  :-(

Per cup of juice, you will need the following (able to double, triple, quadruple, etc)

1T Lemon Juice

1T Calcium Water

3T Sugar

1T Pomona’s Universal Pectin

Add Pit Peel Juice, Lemon Juice, and Calcium Water and bring to a boil.  Mix the Pomona’s Universal Pectin with the sugar so the pectin will not clump.  Add Pectin/Sugar mix to the boiling liquid and stir vigorously for 1-2 minutes while cooking to dissolve Pectin.  Keep boiling until it reached the “sheeting off” jelly test (around 220 degrees).  Skim off foam.  Pour into hot jelly jars and seal.  Process the jars in a boiling hot water bath for 10 minutes.  (Add 1 minute for every 1,000 feet above sea level)

(L to R)  Pit Peel Jelly, Peach Jam sweetened with honey, Spirited Peaches w/SoCo, and Honey Spiced Peaches with cinnamon stick, nutmeg, and cloves.

I started with 6 cups of juice, and ended up with 4.5 cups of jelly.  I boiled it down a bit until it reached “sheeting off”.  I’ve found with Pomona’s Pectin, that you need to get excess water out of the mix for it to set, which only concentrates the flavor.  Win Win.

The recipe I adapted the above from uses 1 package of powdered pectin and 3 cups of sugar for every 3 cups of pit peel juice.  That equates to 16T of sugar for every cup of juice, instead of 3T. 

This is the tally of yesterday morning... 5.5 jelly jars PitPeel Jelly, 9.75 jelly jars of Peach Jam, 8 pints of Honey Spiced Peaches, and 10 jelly jars Spirited Peaches.

Still have a small bowl of fruit left, out of half a bushel.

Edit: No fruit left, just made 4 jars of spirited peaches with DiSoronno,  :-)