Lord Grey's Peach Preserves

The adventures in cannin' and jammin' continued today with another Preservation Society recipe for Peach Preserves with Earl Grey tea. The recipe was easy to follow, and went a little something like this:

To start, score a shallow "X" in the bottom of your peaches. You will want to use five pounds of peaches. Then, in batches, drop them in boiling water for about a minute until the skin loosens up. Cool the peaches in an ice water bath so that you can comfortably peel and slice them. Once you have peeled, quartered, and sliced your peaches into 1/3" slices, mix them with four cups of sugar and two tablespoons of fresh lemon juice. Let the mixture sit for 30 minutes. 

After 30 minutes the peach+sugar mixture will have produced a lot of juice. Drop in four Earl Grey tea bags and cut open an additional tea bag and mix the leaves in with your peach mixture. Bring the mixture to a boil for about twenty to twenty five minutes. Meanwhile, sterilize and prepare your jars for preserving following this method. To check if your preserves are ready to go into their jars, Bon Appetit recommends a nifty method. Put a small plate in the freezer and after boiling your peaches for the allotted time, spoon a small amount on the cold plate. When the peach mixture doesn't run, you know its done. Skim the foam off the top of the peaches before canning (I think I missed some, the top of my jars look a little foamy). 

Continue to process you jars as described by the method in the link above. 

Blurry picture. :(

After finishing all of the jars, I enjoyed the pan scrapings the best way I know how. Preserves atop goat cheese and Carr's whole wheat crackers. So.good. The peaches with the Earl Grey tea produces a really unique flavor. 

My preserves are resting on the counter for the next 24 hours until they move to a more permanent, cool, dark location (the pantry!). I'm excited to pack a few jars for school. More importantly, I'm crossing my fingers that Irene doesn't delay my older sister's travel plans later this week - then I can share them with her. :)