Looking for How to Make Peach Honey or Nectarine Honey - Easily! in 2021? Scroll down this page and follow the links. And if you bring home some fruit or vegetables and want to can, freeze, make jam, salsa or pickles, see this page for simple, reliable, illustrated canning, freezing or preserving directions. There are plenty of other related resources, click on the resources dropdown above.
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For more information about stone fruits, see Peach Picking Tips
And for a variation, using peach mango juice, see this page on blogspot!
See this page for blueberry
jam, this one for fig jam and
for berry jams, see strawberry,
blackberry, raspberry jam For easy
applesauce or
apple butter directions,
click on these links. I've got some other pages for specific types of
jam and butters, too,
see this page.
This example shows you how to make fruit honey from peaches (and other stone fruits)!
If you are
starting with peach juice, skip to step 6.
It's fun to go pick your own and you can obviously get better quality ones! (Damsons are shown in the photo at left)
It takes about 5 to 6 cups of peach peelings, which takes at least several dozen peaches to get this many peelings. It does require a LOT of peelings, as they cook down!
I'm
sure you can figure out how to wash the fruit in a colander of plain cold
water.
Then you need to pick out and remove any bits of stems, leaves and soft or mushy fruit. It is easiest to do this in a large bowl of water and gently run your hands through the fruit as they float. With your fingers slightly apart, you will easily feel any soft or mushy fruit get caught in your fingers.
Then just drain off the water!
Peaches and nectarines should be peeled, as their skins can be tough / chewy in jam. Peaches have such thin skins, you really don't need to peel them.
For those you want to peel, here's a great trick that works with many
fruits and vegetables with skins (like tomatoes): just dip the fruit in
boiling water for 30 to 60 seconds.
Remove from the water using a slotted spoon and put into a large bowl or pot of cold water and ice.
The skins will easily slide off now IF the peaches are ripe! The more
unripe they are, the longer you'll need to heat them. You can now eat
the peaches, or
can
them or make peach jam,
etc.
For this recipe, we only need the peelings. Save all washed, sound pieces and peelings from the peaches. (if you are peeling the peaches in advance, keep the peelings refrigerated until ready to use).
I mentioned in the ingredients section that you can use canned peach juice. That's true, but it is much more difficult. The peelings add a lot of solid particulates which help the "honey" to thicken.
Now's a good time to get the jars ready, so you won't be rushed later. The dishwasher is fine for the jars; especially if it has a "sanitize" cycle, the water bath processing will sanitize them as well as the contents! If you don't have a dishwasher with a sanitize cycle, you can wash the containers in hot, soapy water and rinse, then sanitize the jars by boiling them 10 minutes, and keep the jars in hot water until they are used.
Canning jars in the dishwasher NOTE: If a canning recipe calls for 10 minutes or more of process time in the canner, then the jars do not need to be "sanitized" before filling them. But really, sanitizing them first is just good hygeine and common sense! See this page for more detail about cleaning and sanitizing jars and lids.
Put the lids into a pan of hot, but not quite boiling water (that's what the manufacturer's recommend) for 10 minutes, and use the magnetic "lid lifter wand" to pull them out.
Leave the jars in the dishwasher on "heated dry" until you are ready to use them. Keeping them hot will prevent the jars from breaking when you fill them with the hot jam.
Lids: put the very hot (but not quite boiling; around 180 F, steaming water is fine)
water for at least several minutes; to soften up the gummed surface and clean the lids. I just leave them in there, with the heat on very low, until I need them!
Need lids, rings and replacement jars?
Get them all here, delivered direct to your home, at the best prices on the internet!
Place the juice in the saucepan and heat over medium to high heat.
When it boils vigorously, add the sugar at the rate of one-half as much
sugar as juice. Boil it down rapidly until it achieves the consistency
of honey.
If it doesn't thicken, you can mix 1/3 of a packet of pectin with 1/3 cup of sugar and mix it in. That will thicken it.
Or you can cook it down in a Crockpot overnight, on low!
Fill
them to within 1/4-inch of the top, wipe any spilled jam off the top, seat
the lid and tighten the ring around them. Then put them into the boiling
water cann
er!
This is where the jar tongs and lid lifter come in really handy!
Keep
the jars covered with at least 2 inches of water. Keep the water boiling. In
general, boil them for 5 minutes. I say "in general" because you have
to process (boil) them longer at higher altitudes than sea level, or if you
use larger jars, or if you did not sanitize the jars and lids right before
using them. The directions inside every box of pectin will tell you
exactly. The directions on the pectin tend to be pretty conservative.
Clemson University says you only need to process them for 5 minutes. I
usually hedge my bets and start pulling them out after 7 minutes, and the
last jars were probably in for 10. I rarely have a jar spoil, so it
must work.
Note: Some people don't even boil the jars; they just ladle it hot into hot jars, put the lids and rings on and invert them, but putting the jars in the boiling water bath REALLY helps to reduce spoilage! To me, it makes little sense to put all the working into making the jam and then not to process the jars to be sure they don't spoil!
Lift
the jars out of the water and let them cool without touching or bumping
them in a draft-free place (usually takes overnight) You can then remove
the rings if you like, but if you leave them on, at least loosen them
quite a bit, so they don't rust in place due to trapped moisture. Once
the jars are cool, you can check that they are sealed verifying that the
lid has been sucked down. Just press in the center, gently, with your
finger. If it pops up and down (often making a popping sound), it is not
sealed. If you put the jar in the refrigerator right away, you can still
use it. Some people replace the lid and reprocess the jar, then that's a
bit iffy. If you heat the contents back up, re-jar them (with a new lid)
and the full time in the canner, it's usually ok.
Once cooled, they're ready to store. I find they last up to 12 months. But after about 6 to 8 months, they get darker in color and start to get runny. They still are safe to eat, but the flavor and texture aren't as good. So eat them in the first 6 months after you prepare them!
This recipe closely follows Clemson University's lab tested peach butter recipe.
Other Equipment:From left to right:
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Home Canning KitsSee the seller's website for more information, features, pricing and user reviews! This is the same type of standard canner that my grandmother used to make everything from applesauce to jams and jellies to tomato and spaghetti sauce. This complete kit includes everything you need and lasts for years: the canner, jar rack, jar grabber tongs, lid lifting wand, a plastic funnel, labels, bubble freer, and the bible of canning, the Ball Blue Book. It's much cheaper than buying the items separately. You'll never need anything else except jars & lids (and the jars are reusable)! There is also a simple kit with just the canner and rack, and a pressure canner, if you want to do vegetables (other than tomatoes). To see more canners, of different styles, makes and prices, click here!
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Canning booksCanning & Preserving for Dummies
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For Dummies |
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The All New Ball Book Of Canning And Preserving: Over 350 of the Best Canned, Jammed, Pickled, and Preserved Recipes PaperbackThis is THE book on canning! My grandmother used this book when I was a child. It tells you in simple instructions how to can almost anything; complete with recipes for jam, jellies, pickles, sauces, canning vegetables, meats, etc. If it can be canned, this book likely tells you how! Click on the link below for more information and / or to buy (no obligation to buy)
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Above is the
2020 version of
the Ball Blue Book