The second dozen of peaches Adelaide prepared in the same manner. She placed them in a pan, covered them with boiling water, let them stand a few minutes, removed their skins with a silver knife, cut them in halves, took out the stones, then weighed the peaches. Placing them carefully in the saucepan, Adelaide poured over the peaches one-third of their weight of sugar, and let them stand over night.
In the morning she added two cups of cold water and stood the saucepan over the fire, letting it come slowly to the boiling point.
From then on the peaches simmered slowly, until they could be pierced easily with a silver fork, Adelaide stirring occasionally in a careful manner with a wooden spoon so as not to break the fruit.
When they were sufficiently cooked, she picked out the fruit with the fork, putting twelve halves in each pint jar, filled them to overflowing with the syrup, then inserted a silver knife between the fruit and the jars to let all air bubbles rise to the top and break, placed the new rubbers on smoothly, sealed quickly, and stood the jars upside down out of the way of any draft.
In the morning she examined each jar carefully to be sure they did not leak, wiped off all stickiness with a damp cloth, pasted on the labels, then stored the peaches away in the preserve closet.
Canned Peaches (without sugar)
| Peaches, | 1 dozen |
| Water, | 2 cups |
After Adelaide had covered the peaches with boiling water and let them stand a few minutes, she removed the skins with a silver knife, cut them in halves, took out the stones and placed them carefully in the saucepan.
To these she added two cups of cold water, put the saucepan over the fire, let the peaches heat through gradually, stirring occasionally with the wooden spoon, and then boiled them very gently for twenty minutes, or until they could be pierced easily with a silver fork.