Skip to main content
Dessert

Preserved Peaches

Preserved peaches are whole peaches soaked in lye, then boiled in sugar syrup until tender and sealed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and peach 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 ↓

Preserved Peaches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare a hot lye from wood ashes.

  2. Soak the peaches in the lye for a few minutes.

  3. Transfer the peaches to cold water to easily slip off the skins.

Make the syrup and cook the peaches

  1. Weigh the peaches and add sugar: 3/4 pound per pound of fruit for whole peaches, or equal weight if halved.

  2. Make a syrup with the sugar and minimal water.

  3. Boil the peaches in the syrup until tender and transparent.

  4. Remove the peaches from the syrup.

  5. Boil the syrup until thick and clear.

  6. Strain the syrup.

Jar and seal

  1. Pour the syrup over the peaches in jars and seal immediately.

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. Sugar + peachtop 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

Peaches
The fruit softens and turns translucent as it simmers in the sugar syrup.
Sugar
Sugar draws water out of the fruit and thickens the syrup, helping preserve it and sweetening it.

The step that matters

Soaking the peaches in the lye. Lye is strongly alkaline and loosens the skins by breaking down the bonds at the fruit's surface. Soaking too long can soften or damage the flesh, so the peaches should be soaked only briefly and then rinsed well in cold water.

“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.

You might also like

Peach Ice CreamPeach Ice Cream64 recipesPeach FrittersPeach Fritters55 recipesPeach MeringuePeach Meringue40 recipesPeach IcePeach Ice16 recipes