Peck Preserves: calling them jam or marmalade is not sufficient

Once upon a time, the word "marmalade or jam” was synonymous of snack time but it seems that children nowadays are no longer as attracted to the jars hidden in the pantry and the old saying to be caught “red-handed” or “with your fingers in the jam jar" seems to have lost its meaning. Is it because of the abundance of pre-packaged and very tasty snacks? Are mothers to blame as they don’t find the time to spread some jam on a sandwich and slip it into their child's backpack?

Yet jam is the protagonist of one of the most popular desserts ever, and that of Peck’s special clientele, jam tart. What good reasons can we find for stirring a simmering pot for hours on end when the shop shelves are stacked with a wide variety of preserves? As always, one of the pleasures of cooking is finding the best quality raw materials and create infinitely different combinations of flavours and tastes. Home-made jam is unique, but if you are not completely satisfied with the outcome, you can sink your despair in a beautiful jar of Peck preserve.

You can use personal reserves of mature fruit freshly picked from the tree or do you prefer to only use organic fruit? Making jams and preserves requires less energy than you might think.

You need a rather large sauce pan - copper if possible - a weighing scale, a few basics in mathematics and a few hours of freedom. If you have a sugar thermometer, all the better.

Choose the fruit and add 375 g of sugar per 500 grams of prepared fruits. You can use either white or cane as you prefer. Take the pot and melt the sugar in 2 dl of water for every kilo of sugar and cook the syrup, removing the foam, until it is thick and slightly "stringy" (to be finicky, it should reach a "feather" temperature of 107°C). Add the sliced fruit and continue cooking over medium heat, stirring very often, until it reaches the ‘soft-ball’ stage, that is, until a drop of jam coagulates and can be rolled when dropped onto the plate.

To preserve the jam, pour the hot mixture into clean glass jars, close them with an airtight cap and sterilize them in a water bath, making sure you roll some tea towels around the jars to prevent them from banging into each other during the process. The capsules should be soaked in water at least three fingers in height, bring to the boil and, when sterilizing is completed, allow the jars to cool in the water. This process and these proportions are a provide a good basic recipe to start from: Begin with an easy preserve, for example pears, calibrating the taste as your experience grows, adding for instance vanilla pods, you can also add ginger to peaches, lavender to raspberries, and cloves to strawberries. Do not be afraid of adding "too much sugar": you can also make preserves with small amounts of sugar but remember that they will not last long. Peck’s preserves contain precious cane sugar or grape sugar and are never oversweet. Never cook the jam on a very high flame or for too long, as it could completely caramelize and lose its aroma. Try all the recipes you find, to decide what your favourites are, but remember that Peck preserves will always tempt someone in the house to stick their fingers in the jam jar!