Prepping fruit and measuring for real
So you've got peaches. Picked yesterday or today, I hope, not sitting in a bag on the counter going soft and sad, because we already covered how they don't wait for you.
Now we actually deal with them.
Blanching so the skins come off without a fight
Don't peel peaches with a knife. You'll lose half the fruit and all your patience. The trick isn't really a trick, it's just water.
Get a big pot of water boiling. Drop peaches in, four or five at a time, for about 30 to 60 seconds. You're not cooking them, you're just loosening the skin. Pull them out with a slotted spoon and drop them straight into a bowl of ice water. That stops the cooking and the skins will just about slide off in your hands.
If a skin fights you, it needs another few seconds in the boiling water. Don't force it or you'll end up mushing the peach. Let the water do the work.
Pitting and cutting
Cut around the pit, twist the two halves apart like you're taking apart an Oreo, and the pit either pops right out or you pry it with a spoon. Some peaches are clingstones and they will not let go easy. That's just the fruit, not you doing it wrong.
Cut them into chunks, roughly the same size, because that helps them cook down evenly. I don't measure the chunks with a ruler or anything. Rough is fine.
The part people skip: actually measuring
This is the step that turns "peach jam" into an actual recipe instead of a guess. You need to know how many cups of crushed or chopped fruit you've got, because your pectin box and your recipe are built around a specific fruit measurement. Guess wrong and you'll end up either soupy or set up like a hockey puck.
Here's my method. Chop the peaches, then mash them a little with a potato masher right in the bowl, just enough to break them down some, not puree them. Then scoop that into a measuring cup and level it off like you're baking. Write the number down. Actually write it down, don't trust your brain to hold onto "6ish cups" for the next twenty minutes while you're also washing jars and hollering at Brett to bring up more from the garage.
I use store-bought pectin, every time, and I won't apologize for it. There's a whole crowd of people who act like pectin from a box is cheating and "natural set" is somehow more virtuous. I don't have time for that. Box pectin is consistent, it tells you the exact ratio of fruit to sugar to pectin you need, and it works. Follow the box. That's the whole secret.
A quick honest confession
Nobody tells you this, so I will. I can run the exact same recipe, same peaches practically, same measuring, and one batch sets up firm while the next stays a little loose. I genuinely don't always know why. Maybe the peaches were riper one time. Maybe I mismeasured a half cup and didn't catch it. I've made my peace with it, and I'm not going to stand here pretending I've got a perfect formula that guarantees a firm set every single time. I don't.
If it happens to you, it's not a sign you're bad at this. Loose jam is still jam. Pour it over ice cream and call it sauce. I've done it. More on that another day.
While we're on the subject of things that don't go according to plan
I have, I kid you not, a whole stack of jam labels sitting in a drawer at home. Nice ones. I designed them, had them printed, they've got a little peach graphic and everything, and I have never once used them. Every single jar I've ever given away has masking tape and Sharpie on it, "Peach 2024" in my terrible handwriting. The fancy labels just sit there looking pretty and useless. No real lesson in it, it's just true, and it happens with fruit prep too. You'll buy the nice mesh strainer and end up using a regular bowl and a masher because it's faster. That's fine. Use what's fast when you're standing over hot peaches.
The actual caution here
Boiling water for the blanch is still boiling water. Don't dump a whole colander of peaches in at once, you'll splash yourself. Small batches, slotted spoon, and keep the ice water bowl close so you're not walking across the kitchen holding hot fruit.
Before next time
Practice measuring one batch of fruit start to finish, blanch, peel, chop, mash, measure, and just get a feel for how fast peaches go from raw to ready for the pot. Next time we're actually making jam.