peach – The Witty Child

A couple of years ago, one of my mom’s friends from out of town came by with a box full of produce from her garden and homemade preserves. It was then that I encountered groundcherries for the first time, but of more immediate interest was the jar of peach-pepper jam.

“Is it spicy?” my mom asked, not unreasonably.

“Oh, no. If I can eat it, it’s not spicy.” She explained that she likes to spread a thin layer of cream cheese on a cracker (or several) followed by a smear of the jam, and the cream cheese helps dull any spice. Not the healthiest snack, surely, but she was right: it was delicious like that.

Fast-forward a couple of years, and my Baking Buddy and I were spitballing ideas for homemade Christmas gifts (yes, it’s September and I used the C-word), when I remembered the jam. He thought it sounded like a good idea, and that’s how we came to spend a Saturday morning slicing and dicing the produce we had carefully selected a few days prior.

We used this recipe, which I had confirmed was the one from whence sprang the jar that showed up a few years prior. My previous experience had been limited to freezer jam and not honest-to-goodness cooked and sealed stuff, so I was looking forward to practicing a new skill, too.

It made me think of peach salsa, albeit a deconstructed version, when we first added all our ingredients to the pot. There’s something so appealing about the vivid colours of the produce.

Before long, though, it started to get saucy.

Full steam ahead! This was actually a welcome relief, because when we first started out we were concerned there wouldn’t be any liquid to gel. The peaches were pretty firm and not really juicy, and the peppers didn’t seem to offer a lot of moisture, but by the time we got to this stage I was glad we didn’t try to “help it along” with any added water.

Aren’t those little 125 ml jars the cutest? They’re going to be perfect for tucking into a gift bag.

The beautiful pink-ish colour is just a bonus. I was expecting yellowy-peachy, but this is so pretty!

Our finished product had a bit more kick than the jar I had been gifted, making me think the recipe had been tweaked somewhat to include a bit more peach or a bit less pepper – but this is by no means unbearably spicy. We cracked open a jar to try it, and it’s got a sweet-hot zip that should be a hit.

Thanks for looking! 🙂

(Re: Subject Line – I think I might have just dated myself…)

A month or so ago, my accounting instructor was explaining the importance of determining cost of goods sold, using one of three main costing methods. Our cost, she reminded us, doesn’t remain constant, and used limes as an example. Normally inexpensive, the price has skyrocketed recently due to a combination of poor growing weather in Mexico and the interference of drug cartels. “So you might want to skip the margaritas this weekend,” she concluded, “since the cost will be passed along to the consumer.” I didn’t question what she was saying at the time – produce really was an excellent example, because there’s always something to get in the way – but a few days later I read the same thing in the newspaper. The newspaper article, however, added that many restaurants are pushing other varieties of margaritas, such as peach or strawberry.

And that’s when it hit me: I’m not likely to head to the bar for a pitcher of margaritas, but darn it, what about my cupcakes?

So last weekend, ~~instead of~~ in between studying really hard for my accounting final, I tweaked my margarita cupcake recipe to come up with fuzzy navel cupcakes.

This is basically the Mucho Margarita Cupcakes recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, but I used peach schnapps instead of tequila, omitted the lime zest and juice, and added a box of peach Jell-o for flavour. (If you want to keep this vegan, and live somewhere with better animal-free options available, I believe that Simply Delish makes a peach “jel”. I do not, so I used the rather more pedestrian option available to me.) I made a simple orange-vanilla buttercream, and topped each one off with a Fuzzy Peach candy. One of my testers claimed he liked these better than the original, limey-salty version.

If these make me rich, my instructor is absolutely getting a cut of the profits. 😉

Tag: peach

If Peter Piper picked a peck of peachy peppers…

Ask me about my fuzzy navel!