I took the plunge this weekend and tried making peach jam, with my own recipe. I followed the principles of jam making from the French apricot jam recipe which I wrote about a few weeks ago, which are: soak the fruit with lemon juice, water and a vanilla pod for a few hours to let the flavors meld together; cook the fruit in this mixture until the fruit gets soft-ish, before adding the sugar; fruit to sugar ratio is almost two to one, as opposed to one to one as in most recipes; and a soft set.

Well, it was a success, and glorious, too. I love fresh peaches; to me, that is the taste of summer time, especially when the peaches are topped with cream and sugar. Since I used significantly less sugar than in other jams, some of the peach pieces still retained just a bite of freshness, rather than being smothered in sweetness.

What I did:

1 kg peaches (stoned weight)

650 grams sugar

1 sachet pectin

Juice of one lemon

300 mls water

1 vanilla pod


Scalde, peel, pit and chop the peaches into small-ish chunks. Put in a jam pot with the lemon juice, water, and vanilla pod, which should be cut up into four pieces. Leave to infuse for a few hours. Then, simmer for about 30 min., or until the fruit is soft - but not too soft, as you want some of the pieces to retain their shape. Add the sugar and pectin, and then boil away until setting point is reached.

It always seems like a gamble, determining when exactly the setting point has been reached.