A friend of mine has a peach tree. She brought the most delicious white flesh peaches I have had in a while to a party. My mom ended up taking them. I still don’t know how that happened. Anyway, my friend promised me another bag. And she came through:

This is what I had left. Oh what do I mean? I had to be sure they were still tasty. I ate two immediately. So juicy.

As much as I loved them, I could not eat them all before they went bad. So…JAM IT IS! But not my full scale, 6 dozen jar production. Nope. I bought a bread maker (and then discovered the joys of mixer and no knead bread. Go figure) and it can make jam. In fact, I think most can. Anyway. A cup or so of fresh peach jam coming up!

First, I must skin the peaches. How do you do this the quick way? Boil some water:

drop peaches in for a minute:

dunk in ice water:

skin peels right off!

That is a horrible lie. My mom’s peels came right off. My peels did not come right off. “Cut an X on the bottom!” Did that. no love. I boiled them for 60 seconds. I boiled them for almost 2 minutes. Nothing. You know what did it? A paring knife.

Instructions from the manual: <none> There were no instructions for peaches. For hard fruit like apples:

“Cut into small pieces, cook with water until soft, mash. Add 1 cup of prepared fruit to pan with one cup of sugar.”

I did not want sweet cooked peaches. I wanted jam. Well, preserves.

Reality:

“Cut into smallish pieces, eat multiple lovely juicy chunks that didn’t get cooked mushy by the failed peeling process, add 1 cup of whatever is left to the bread pan, realize you have a bit more than a cup, add the rest, add 1 cup of sugar, and a bit of pectin because I want a harder set.”

Instructions from the manual:  Put pan in the breadmaker, press the jam button. Come back in 1 hour 20 minutes to jam! Let cool. Place in clean container. Cover and refrigerate.

Reality: Put pan in breadmaker, press jam button, come back in 1 hour 20 minutes to find sweet peach flavored syrup with bits in. Press jam button again. Wonder why the machine just beeps at you. Realize it has to cool down. Come back 5 minutes later, press jam button, machine still beeps at you. Come back in an hour because, really, it’s time for dinner. I don;t need jam RIGHT NOW. Press jam button. Machine complies. Come back in 1 hour 20 minutes to find mostly thickened jam with peach bits in and burned sugar at the top. Rejoice! Spoon into clean container, cover and place in fridge. Lick spoon. Go to bed happy.”