Peach Preserves vs Peaches in a Light Syrup

Inquiring minds wanted to know. Well that might be an overstatement so let me rephrase. An inquiring mind wanted to know and that mind was me! What did I want to know, you ask? It’s simple. After years of putting up peaches in a light syrup to carry me through the winter, I wondered if there was a recipe out there that could top my current ‘go to’ recipe for peaches. It wasn’t that I was tired of the favourite peaches. It’s not like I was going to cheat on them so stop judging me. I was just curious…and I had a bushel of peaches fresh from the farmer’s market staring up at me from their wooden box.

I scoured some preserving cook books, checked out some of my favourite blogs and shortlisted it to three different recipes, made all 3 and personally chose one that was different enough but delicious enough to be a contender for my taste testers to put through the paces.

But before I get into the results let me tell you a bit about each recipe. The Peaches in a Light Syrup are quite simply peach slices in a very light sugar syrup. When you open the jar you get the fresh sweet smell of natural peaches. The colour is light and clear and the flavour is pure peach. The Preserved Peaches are different in that you let the peach slices macerate before you preserve them so the peach slices and the sugar get all juicy together. The addition of pectin to this recipe makes the syrup slightly thicker and to be honest there is just simply more sugar. The colour is bold and rich and the flavour is deep and rich but not as ‘peachy’. NOTE: I did not include the cinnamon or the almond extract as I wanted the peach flavour to stand on it's own.

photo credit: Nancy Lismer

I delivered a jar of both to each taste tester alongside a little questionnaire. Now not all of the results are in but there were some clear lines in the results that I will share with you now and they seemed to revolve around sweetness. If you like a sweeter product, the Preserved Peached are for you. The comments listed in the box below are highlights from some of the taste testers. Check it out.

	Preserved Peaches	Peaches Preserved in Syrup
Texture	LOVED the texture, thick, rich and syrupy. Because of the thickness the flavour lingered longer. It flirted on the palette	Peaches were still nice and firm so they didn’t fall apart
Rating	If you like sweet – that average rating came in between 8.5 and 9	For those taste testers who like a product that is less sugar-y the peaches in light syrup rocked a score of 10
Sweetness	9.5 – 10 (by those who liked and disliked the sweetness level)	3 - 6.5
Uses	All parties seemed to agree that this preserve would be great on ice cream or served as a desert. A suggestion came through that you could drizzle the juice on a pork chop and serve the peaches on the side.	Excellent for breakfast with yogourt or granola. Or as a key ingredient in a cocktail with sparkling wine
What would you tell someone about this product	The colour is gorgeous. Has a wonderful smoothness from a flavour and texture perspective. The syrup alone is so good and then you bite into the peach and the flavours just explode	It’s like a taste of summer in a jar.

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