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To Can Peaches, Pears, and Apricots

A method for canning peaches, pears, or apricots in a sugar syrup.

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

To Can Peaches, Pears, and Apricots

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Peel, halve, and seed the fruit, then drop it into cold water to prevent discoloration.

Make the syrup and heat the fruit

  1. In a pot, combine 1 pound of sugar with 1 quart of water and bring to a boil for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the fruit to the hot syrup and let it heat through.

Pack and seal

  1. Fill jars with the hot fruit and pour the syrup over it.

  2. Screw the lids on tightly as you fill each jar.

  3. Apply a wrench as they cool.

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

Fresh peaches, pears, or apricots
Supplies the main flavor and texture; cold water briefly keeps the cut fruit from browning.
White sugar
Sweetens the fruit and syrup, and helps the fruit keep its flavor and texture in the jar.

The step that matters

Screw the lids on tightly as you fill each jar. Hot fruit and syrup drive air out of the jar, and as it cools a partial vacuum forms that pulls the lid down to seal. Loose lids can let air back in and the seal can fail.

“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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