Last Call for Summer Peaches

PUBLISHED ON: 06.30.2012
  A basket of fresh Summer South Carolina peaches. 
The purchase cannot be resisted on a roadside stand off the highway.

A basket of peaches turns into cans of peaches that I can enjoy until next summer.

 The art of packing fruit tightly in the jar still evades me.
While in my canning mode, late one evening and with a little help from Google, I managed to properly freeze a stash of fresh sliced peaches too. My attempt at peach jelly? We won’t go there. 




Peaches in an Extra-light Syrup 
Makes about 8 pint jars or four quarts
Recipe from Ball The Complete Book of Preserving

Ingredients:
8-12 lbs. fresh peaches, peeled, halved, pitted, treated to prevent browning and drained

Note: To prevent browning treat peaches with a citric acid such as lemon juice-An easy recipe would be to submerge cut fruit in a mixture of 1/4 cup lemon juice and 4 cups water.
Recipe for 1 batch hot Extra-Light syrup

Ingredients:
1-1/4 cups granulated sugar
5-1/2 cups water
Yields: 6 cups 
Directions:
In a stainless steel saucepan, combine sugar and water.  Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved.  Reduce heat to low and keep warm until needed, taking care not to boil the syrup down.
Raw Pack Method
1.  Prepare canner, jars and lids.
2.  Pack peaches, cavity side down and overlapping layers, into hot jars to within a generous 1/2 inch (1 cm) of top of jar.  Ladle hot syrup into jar to cover peaches, leaving 1/2-inch (1 cm) of headspace.  remove air bubbles and adjust headspace, if necessary, by adding hot syrup.  Wipe rim.  Center lid on jar.  Screw band down until resistance is met, then increase to fingertip-tight.
3.  Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water.  Bring to a boil and process pint (500ml) jars for 25 minutes and quart (1 L)jars for 30 minutes.  remove canner lid.  Wait 5 minutes, then remove jars, cool and store.
Enjoy!

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