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Preserve

To Preserve Peaches

A method for preserving peaches by boiling them with sugar and storing in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,308 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

To Preserve Peaches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Weigh the peeled peaches.

  2. For each pound of fruit, use a pound of sugar.

  3. Layer sugar and fruit in a preserving kettle until all fruit is used.

Cook the peaches

  1. Heat over the fire until the sugar dissolves completely.

  2. Boil the peaches until they are clear.

  3. Remove peaches one by one and place them on a dish free from syrup.

  4. Boil the syrup in the pan until it jellies.

Jar and seal

  1. Once the peaches are cold, fill jars half full with peaches and top with boiling syrup.

  2. Cover with a thin cloth for a short time.

  3. Seal jars with brandied paper, corks, or skin.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Clear-stone yellow peaches
Provide the fruit, which softens and turns clear as it cooks in the syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, once concentrated by boiling, thickens the syrup so it jellies and preserves the fruit.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup until it jellies. Sugar must be concentrated by boiling to a high enough level for the syrup to set and resist spoilage. Undercooked syrup stays runny and may not preserve the fruit, while overcooking can make it hard and sugary.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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