Queen Elizabeth Cake

This might be the best vegan dessert I've ever made.

A few weeks ago, a friend mentioned a craving for something called Queen Elizabeth Cake. Her grandmother would make it at Christmas-time. I was intrigued, especially when I heard it was a date cake topped with a broiled coconut icing!

I did some research because of the name of the cake. There are many stories about the cake online. Some say it was a recipe made by Queen Elizabeth (there's debate about whether the younger or the elder), and the only cake she made herself!  Some stories say the recipe came together during the war. The cake contains a very little amount of butter or eggs, which would make sense if ingredients were rationed. Another part of the story is that the recipe was sold as a fundraiser.

I'm not sure what to make of all of these stories. It seems to be a very Canadian cake though as I can't find the recipe in British cook books. It's kind of like sticky toffee pudding in cake form.

When my friend made it, it was so good!  Really moist cake, dotted with dates, not too rich!  And the frosting was so good!  Creamy with lightly toasted coconut!  When I saw the recipe, I knew this cake would be perfect for vegan experimentation. It's a simple recipe, and the flavor comes from the ingredients, dates and coconut, not so much butter and eggs.

The vegan version is dense and moist, I upped the amount of dates from the original recipe, and substituted coconut oil for butter.

Enjoy!

Queen Elizabeth Cake

Adapted from Amy Murphy's recipe (Thanks, Nanny Murphy!)
Makes 1 cake

Takes 1.5 hours

For  Cake:

1 1/2 cups baking dates, coarsely chopped

1 cup boiling water

1 tablespoon ground flax seed

1/4 cup water

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup chopped, lightly toasted walnuts (or pecans or hazelnuts or almonds)

1/4 cup coconut oil

1/2 cup sugar

1 tablespoon white vinegar

For Icing:

5 tbsp brown sugar

3 tbsp Coconut oil

1/2 cup dried coconut (I used unsweetened)

3 tbsp coconut milk (perfect to make alongside a thai curry or kuku paka)

In a heatproof bowl, pour 1 cup boiling water over the dates. Cover and let soak for 1 hour.

Mix the ground flax seed with the 1/4 cup of water.  Mix together thoroughly and let sit for at least 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350F. 

Grease a square glass baking dish (make sure yours is broiler proof--mine wasn't, so I used a spring form pan, lined with parchment paper and foil.  I didn't do this on purpose, but I always end up ripping the lining, and thought a double layer to protect against the cake running out the bottom!)

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and 1/2 cup of nuts.

In another bowl, beat together coconut oil and sugar until well-combined and fluffy.  Add vinegar and the flax seed mixture and beat well. Add the dates and water and combine.

Pour the wet mixture into the dry and stir until it just comes together. Pour into the prepared baking dish and smooth the top.  Bake for 35 to 40 minutes until a tester comes out clean.

When the cake comes out of the oven, place an oven rack on the slot second to the top, and turn the broiler on high. Boil together in a sauce pan on medium high heat the brown sugar, coconut oil, dried coconut, coconut milk, and 1/4 cup of nuts. 

Boil for three minutes and quickly pour over the still warm cake before the mixture becomes hard. Broil for about 5 minutes, watching carefully to make sure the coconut doesn't burn.The frosting will bubble madly!

Take the cake out and let cool. You will have this pretty lacy topping for the cake.

 

Eat! It's even better the next day.

Christmas Cake: Day 2

I made two Christmas Cakes!  They are soaking up whiskey and waiting for Christmas and, hopefully, not growing any pathogens. I'll post an updated picture when it comes time to pour a little more bourbon on them this weekend.  Every Sunday between now and Christmas they get a little drink!

Christmas Cake
Adapted from Felicity Cloake's Recipe

Takes 1 hour + 2 hours baking + weeks of waiting
Makes 1 cake

1/2 cup + 1 Tablespoon butter, very soft or melted
1/2 cup + 1 Tablespoon muscovado or dark brown sugar
4 eggs
1/2 cup + 1 Tablespoon flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon mixed spice (a suggestion: 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon + 1/4 teaspoon clove + 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg; you can also use pumpkin pie spice if you have it)
1/4 cup ground almonds
zest of one lemon (an unwaxed one if possible)
1/4 cup blanched almonds
Boozy Fruits

Preheat oven to 280 degrees fahrenheit.

With two layers of parchment, line and butter an 8 inch cake tin, or what I like to use is a 1 1/2 quart Corning bakeware or similar casserole type dishes. Trim the excess parchment.

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs, one at a time, whisking in each until fully incorporated. This will take some time, but when you are done, your batter will look very smooth and rich. Add boozy fruits and their juices, lemon zest and almonds, and stir until just combined.

In another bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, mixed spice, ground almonds and a pinch of salt. 

Fold flour mixture into butter mixture until just combined.

Pour into prepared cake tin and create a hollow with your spatula. This trick prevents a dome from forming on your cake!

Bake for one hour.  Cover loosely with tin foil and bake for 30 more minutes. Check to see if it's done (an inserted fork comes out clean). If it's not, cover again, and bake in 10 minute intervals until cooked. Each cake took approximately an extra 40 minutes for a total baking time of 2 hours and 10 minutes.

Let cool completely. When cool, poke holes almost all the way through the cake.  Brush with whiskey.  Wrap in foil and keep in an airtight container. Brush with whiskey, around once a week until Christmas!

Stir it Up!: Christmas Cake, day 1

This is the second year that I am making a Christmas Cake.  Known to some as fruit cake, this is not at all one of those bizarrely dry cakes with bits of bright red and green candied something in them. This is a very moist, rich, boozy cake with lots of real fruit.  Just a tiny slice of cake is so good with a cup of tea around 4 pm, when it is starting to get dark, and you just aren't ready to have it be nighttime already. I love real fruitcake for not being too sweet, and being actually fruity, not in a bright, summery way, but in a serious, winter way. It's a very companionable cake, for the quiet, contemplative time of year.

It's also a party cake, though, because it really is full of booze!  If you're going to make it, use something that you like to drink. The alcohol helps preserve the cake and gives it flavor. 

I spent one fall in London (the first year of this blog), and the woman I was living with started making mincemeat for pies in November. I was very impressed, and couldn't imagine planning to cook that far ahead. Last year, I really wanted to make a christmas cake, but, poor planner that I am, I started the week before and I fed it a little whiskey every day leading up to its unveiling on Christmas Day. It was delicious.

This year, I am starting on "Stir Up Sunday".  Not at all sure that this is a real thing in Britain, but I like the idea of it a whole lot better than Black Friday which is a very real thing here in the US.  Stir Up Sunday apparently has its roots in the Church of England, which marks the last Sunday before Advent as a day to: 

Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I guess Stir Up Sunday hasn't been an entirely religious event for awhile, because in 1849, an observer marked little boys changing these words to:

Stir up, we beseech thee, 

The pudding in the pot: 

And when we get home, 

We'll eat it all hot. 

Phiz (Hablot K. Brown), "Paul Goes Home for the Holidays"
from Charles Dickens' Dombey and Son (1848–9)
image from Victorian Web.

In addition to its religious meanings, Stir Up Sunday now seems to be a day to make mincemeat for Christmas pies, to start Christmas puddings, and to start a Christmas Cake. We may not have a Christmas tree, but we have a little Christmas Cake starting in our house!  My stirring up will be to write some blog posts between now and the end of the year!  I'll be blogging the progress of the Christmas Cake, and maybe you want to start one too. First steps: the fruit and the bourbon.

Christmas Cake--Step 1: Boozy fruit

adapted from Felicity Cloake's recipe

1 cup dried currants
1 cup sultanas (golden raisins, preferably the big ones)
1/2 cup (about 6) dried smyrna figs, chopped
1/2 cup dried plump cherries (not the super shriveled ones)
1/2 cup candied orange peel or mixed peel, chopped
1 Tablespoon candied ginger, chopped fine
1/2 cup whiskey or bourbon 
a splash, Grand Marnier, if you have it around

Stir it up! Let sit for one day, until you are ready to bake the cake.

Cardamom and Saffron Mandelbrot

I love the holidays!  I love the occasions to gather over food with loved ones, the opportunities to reflect on the year that has passed, and to simply enjoy being together.

I also love the family recipes that get brought out around holidays and the stories that go with them.  A friend and I had an early Hannukah brunch where we made Jewish classics with Indian flavors.  She made curried sweet potato latkes, and I made an interpretation of matzo ball soup (recipe coming soon).  The highlight though, might have been cardamom and saffron mandelbroit, adapted from another friend's family recipe.  It came with instructions from Aunt Alice and my friend's mom, and this post-script: "Aunt Alice was the coolest. She was a big, fleshy, jolly, southern Jewish woman from Atlanta with a drawl and a really sassy sense of humor. I am told that at one point she owned a cat named "Damnit" so she could have the thrill of hollering "Come here, Damnit!" off her porch in the evening."

Damnit would totally come running if he smelled these coming out of the oven!  They are delicious--not too sweet, not too hard, but like a cross between a very dry cake and shortbread.  And very nutty too!

I adapted Aunt Alice's recipe for vegans by substituting flax meal and water for the eggs (1 tablespoon flax meal + 1/4 cup water = 1 egg).  Flax meal is a wonderful substitute for eggs in recipes that use them to bind the ingredients together.  It will not help your baked goods rise however!  If you would prefer to use eggs, just switch out the flax meal and water with 4 eggs.

Yum!  Perfect to have around the house for the holidays, or good for any day along with a cup of tea!

Cardamom and Saffron Mandelbrot

Adapted from Aunt Alice's recipe and Nehama Stampfer Glogower's instructions

Takes 2 hours

Makes about 3 dozen cookies

1 cup (plus a little extra) raw almonds

1/4 cup flax meal

1 cup warm water

1 pinch saffron

3 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1 cup sugar

6 cardamom pods, powdered fine

1 cup oil (I used grapeseed, but I wish I had had almond oil)

Preheat oven to 250 degrees fahrenheit.  Toast the almonds for 15 minutes.  When cool, pulverize to coarse meal in a food processor.  Set aside a few tablespoons to dust the cookies.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit, and make sure the rack is in the middle of the oven.

In a large bowl, mix flax meal, water and saffron.  Let congeal while you mix together the ground almonds, flour, baking powder, and salt in another bowl.  Beat the sugar, cardamom and oil into the other wet ingredients.  Add dry ingredients, and stir until combined.

With wet or oiled hands, form the dough into three 'snake-like things', and place them length-wise and evenly spaced on a baking sheet lined with parchment.  Bake for 40 to 50 minutes 'until it looks toasty'.

Mix the set-aside almonds and a little sugar together.

Slide the parchment paper with mandel bread off of the baking tray onto a counter.  Sprinkle the tops of the snakes with the almond and sugar mixture, and cut into even pieces, about 1/2 inch.  

 
Lie them flat on the baking sheet and return to the oven.  Turn the temperature down to 300 degrees.  Bake for 10 minutes to dry them out.  Turn them over, and bake for 10 more minutes.

Thanks Aunt Alice!  Let the holiday baking begin!

Happy Diwali Pistachio Ice 'Cream'

This year for Diwali, we had a few friends over for masala dosas and sambhar.  Friends brought a salad and chutney and some tapioca payasam!  We had an amazing gluten-free, vegan meal to accommodate everyone's issues, and no one thought for a second that anything was missing.  My contribution to the desserts, because sweets are the most important part of any Diwali celebration, was a Pistachio Ice 'Cream' adapted from David Lebovitz's recipe.  With real nuts and a can of coconut milk it is so rich!

Enjoy, and Happy Diwali everyone!

Pistachio Ice 'Cream'

adapted from David Lebovitz

Makes 6 servings

Takes 1 hour active time (plus cooling and ice cream churning time)

1 14 oz. can coconut milk (make sure it's good and doesn't have any additives)

5 1/2 tsp. corn starch

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup raw pistachios (shelled)

1/2 cup raw cashews

4 cardamom pods, shelled and crushed to a powder

Mix 1/4 cup of coconut milk with the corn starch to make a slurry, taking care to whisk out the lumps.

Heat rest of coconut milk and 1/4 cup of sugar on medium high heat.  Just as it begins bubbling, turn down the heat to simmer, add the slurry, and mix constantly for 3 minutes.  It will thicken right away.  Turn off the heat, let cool, stirring occasionally to prevent a thick skin from forming.  When it's cool enough, put it in the refrigerator.

Bring the raw pistachios, cashews and 1/2 cup of water to a boil.  Remove from heat, and when cool enough, begin removing the skins from the pistachios.  This is tiresome.  You should be able to squeeze the pistachios and the skins should come off neatly, but some times you need to scrub with your finger tips a little for the thin skins.  It's helpful to keep another bowl of water handy to wash your hands. Return the skinned pistachios to the cashews.

When you have skinned all your pistachios, place the pistachios, cashews, powdered cardamom, and remaining 1/4 cup sugar in the bowl of a food processor.  Process, adding the reserved nut-boiling water as necessary to make a smooth paste.  Add this paste to the chilling coconut milk and stir until well-combined.  Chill until you are ready to make your ice cream, or overnight.

Make ice cream according to your maker's directions.  Freeze the ice cream after churning for 30 minutes or so for really nice consistency.

Enjoy!

cardamom pear loaf

Hello readers,

Perhaps like me, you've survived the great snowpocalypse that attacked much of North America (yes North America, dear States-side readers. When you see weather systems disappearing beyond the borders of the US on TV, they come here to Canada).  I can't bear the idea of leaving the house, the slushy streets, icy sidewalks, and the mountains of snow to be conquered on every street corner! All I want is cup upon cup of tea, and a little cake to go with it!

Inspired by a recent recipe on Gourmet Live, I devised a (vegan) cardamom pear loaf.  The original recipe is for a molasses cake, and I was intrigued by the method, which required adding boiling water and then freezing the dough to supposedly evenly bake the bread.  It produced a delicious cake, so moist and fluffy, and with only one egg! that I thought it a fine recipe for vegan tweaking.

This bread is so good - it makes two loaves, one for now, one for later, and fills the house with the yummiest scent of cardamom and vanilla baking.

Vegan Cardamom Pear Loaf

Makes 2 loaves

Takes 1 hour (plus freezing time)

1 cup honey

1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed

3/4 cup + 3 tablespoons canola oil

2 inches of the black innards of a vanilla pod (or 2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract)

1/2 tsp ground cardamom (5-6 pods)

2 cups flour

1 cup semolina*

2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

3 pears sliced up into little bits

1/2 cup pistachios, toasted and coarsely chopped

1.5 cups boiling water

Toast the pistachios in a toaster oven or the big oven on 250 for 8–10 minutes.  Careful they don't burn!  When they've cooled, coarsely chop them.  If baking bread right away, preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Grease and flour 2 loaf pans.

In a large bowl, dissolve the sugar in the honey (you may want to melt the honey in the microwave or on the stove).  When dissolved, add oil, vanilla and cardamom, and stir vigorously until it's well-combined.  Add the flour, semolina, baking soda and salt, and stir until the dough resembles course, sandy meal.  Mix in the pears and crushed pistachios.

Add the boiling water and stir, the dough will be runny like pancake batter.

At this point you have two options, to freeze the dough or to not the freeze the dough.  I find that there is no difference between freezing and not freezing the dough in the finished bread.

The loaf on the left was baked yesterday with immediately mixed batter, and the loaf on the right was baked today, from batter that was frozen overnight.  It has a slightly larger crumb, but other than the differences from my pouring a bit more batter into the pan, tastes the same and has (basically) the same texture.

Oh well.  Since this recipe makes enough for 2 loaves, you get a later loaf for when you've eaten all of the first one!

Bake at 350 for 40-50 minutes (a bit more if you have a frozen loaf) until a fork comes out cleanly.  Let cool in the pan, and then turn out and enjoy!

*Semolina is also known as rava or cream of wheat.  It gives the bread an extra little crunch.  If you don't want to use it, you can use another 1.5 cups of flour (3.5 cups flour total).

Holiday Update (with recipe for apple cake!)

Happy New Year!  I think there's going to be a lot of good cooking this year, but first, some reflections on holiday baking.

My childhood friend Jessica's grandmother makes the absolute best Christmas Cookies in the whole-wide world, and following her recipe, I went a little crazy churning out dozens of Christmas trees, reindeer and little bells.  I used all the tricks, using only really cold dough, rolling out with powdered sugar, refrigerating again before going into the oven.  They came out beautifully!  They were so good with just a really simple milk and sugar glaze.

Perfect for a little snacking while opening presents, watching Harry Potter in pajamas, you know, the usual holiday activities.

I also went upscale with a champagne cocktail made with the elderberry cordial I made this summer.  So delicious (and classy!) with light, airy gougères!

Gougères are savory puffs, usually made with a hard cheese added to the dough.  I made them twice according to Dorie Greenspan's directions.  I followed the recipe exactly, except without the cheese.  On the second attempt, I forgot to turn down the oven, and baked them at 425 degrees for 24 minutes (turning the baking sheets half way through).  They turned out airier and crisper than the first attempt.

There was so much eating and cooking with friends and family!  I'll post just one more dish and include the recipe.  I made a vegan apple cake modeled on a delicious Italian apple tart that we had recently.  I looked into several recipes, but ultimately threw together my own.  It was so good!  And made the lactose-intolerant quite happy while the rest of us enjoyed a ridiculously indulgent trifle (or both!).

  

Apple Cake

Makes 10 servings

Takes 2 hours

3 medium apples
1 lemon, juiced
1 stick vegan shortening (or nut oil)

2/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1/4 cup grand marnier (I think bourbon would also be pretty good, or juice works too)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup coarsely crushed walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.

Peel, core and slice the apples, toss with lemon juice.

Melt 6 tablespoons of shortening in a large pyrex measuring cup.  Use the remaining two tablespooons to butter a 9 inch cake pan or springform pan.  What's left of that, put into a skillet to fry the apples.

On medium heat, saute the apples until they are golden and cooked, about ten minutes.  Set aside.

Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.

To the melted shortening, add alcohol, honey, and vanilla.  Stir until honey is melted and everything is well combined.

Pour the wet and the walnuts into the dry and mix until combined.  Pour into the greased pan.  Arrange the apples in a pretty pattern on top.

Bake for 1 to 1.5 hours.  Cake will be done when cake tester comes out mostly clean.  It will be dense and a little chewy!

This cake tasted even better the next day and was great with a cup of tea.  I hope you enjoy it this winter.

Stay tuned!  Vegetarian Pho, homemade pasta, pepper stew with dumplings, orange bitters, ginger cake and more to come!

Happy New Year!

Thanksgiving Update (with Recipes!)

Dear Readers,

I'm sorry.  I am a bad blogger.  Your memories of Thanksgiving are packed away, and I am about to tell you how my meal went.  Bear with me.  There will be so much holiday baking in the next few weeks, all will be forgiven.  That is my hope.

First, what went wrong.  I tried to make a seitan turkey.  I read so many blogs, and thought I would do bee-yew-ti-full-y, but no, I was left with a dense rubbery mass of wheat meat.

The before:

And the during.

I'll leave the after to your imagination.  I don't know what wrong!  I kneaded, I made dashi, I simmered.  Oh well.  I will not be deterred, and I will make delicious seitan one day!

For the almost perfect, I present a gluten-free, vegan pumpkin coconut pie with a pecan crust.  It's actually quite hard to find a recipe that is both gluten-free and vegan.  At our thanksgiving, we had someone with a gluten allergy and someone who is allergic to both dairy and eggs.  I knew it was going to be tough, but I felt sure that I could make a pie that was vegan and gluten-free and delicious.  And it was!  Too bad the filling never quite set.  Rather than messing with various starch flours to make a pastry crust, I made a delicious nut crust.  The filling was classic Libby's with some vegan experimenting.

Recipe at the end of the post.

Now for what went right...This fig crostata.

It was conventional baking perfection!  Buttery crust, rich filling, and the consistency was perfect.  I've never made a lattice crust before, and I was a little nervous, but it comes out so prettily that I've nearly forgotten the tense moments of broken pastry!  I've had my eye on this recipe since last year's Gourmet Thanksgiving issue.  And I might make it again for Christmas, it has a dark, fruity, filling like mincemeat.  I did need to bake it longer than the 30 minutes in the recipe.  More like 45 minutes for the crust to get golden and the filling to set.

It was a wonderful meal with good friends and good food!

Here's the recipe for the pumpkin pie.

Pumpkin Coconut Custard Pie

Makes 12 servings

Takes 2 hours

2 cups crushed pecans
2 Tbsp. brown sugar
2 Tbsp. vegan margarine (or almond oil) 
3/4 cup brown sugar 
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 
1/2 teaspoon salt 
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger 
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves 
4 Tbsp. cornstarch, sifted
15 oz. Pumpkin Puree (Not pie filling) 
1 can (15 oz.) light coconut milk


Pre-heat the oven to 325 degrees fahrenheit. 

If you are using margarine, soften by placing it in your pie pan and heating it in the oven while it comes to temperature.  Remove before it gets too hot.

Toss the nuts with the brown sugar and then thoroughly mix with margarine in the pan.  Use your fingers to press the nuts into a firm and even layer all around the bottom and sides of pan.  Bake for 25 minutes.  (Keep an eye on it because the pecans will burn if your oven is too hot of you leave it in for too long!).

Meanwhile, in a large saucepan over medium heat, add all filling ingredients.  Stir until combined.  When it begins to steam, turn heat down to low, and stir constantly until the mixture begins to thicken (Watch out!  The pumpkin will bubble and can burn you and make a mess of your kitchen if you leave it be!).

At this point, I am not sure how long you should stir for, or if you should add more corn starch.  I felt my filling had thickened, and poured it into the cooled pie crust.  But!  It never fully set.

We ate it cold and it was so delicious!  Like yummy pumpkin pudding with a pecan praline crumble. 

If you try this pie, please let me know how it goes!

Adventures in Home Preserving: Peaches in Syrup

It has been an amazing summer for stone fruit this year, and we've been enjoying so many cherries, plums and peaches.  I swear I am going to post a recipe for vegan cherry pie soon!  In the meantime, here's a look at some peach canning that happened last weekend.

Last summer, I made brandied peaches, following a recipe from the New York Times in 1951, adapted according to the most up-to-date canning knowledge by Eugenia Bone.  It was my first experiment in home preserving, and they came out beautifully--we enjoyed the peaches throughout the winter.

This summer, my roommate and I decided to try again.  I love peaches, and I wanted a simple recipe that would just showcase the deliciousness of ripe summer fruit.  We bought 20 pounds of peaches from Blossom Bluff Orchards at the Farmers Market (I like to do a lot at once, no a couple jars at a time for me!).  We adapted a couple of recipes to our own purposes, and I have posted our method below.  We'll let you know how the peaches turn out!  At least they look beautiful!

Warning - must pay attention to safely preserve.  If the jars are not properly sealed, botulism can grow in them.  You will know if your peaches go bad because the seal will not have held, and as I understand, the fruit will smell bad.  I don't know from experience because I don't have much.  Practice safe canning, ok?

This recipe has many steps, but none of them are difficult, read them all before you begin.  Invite friends.

Peaches in Syrup

Makes 12 pints of peaches

Takes 3 to 4 hours

approximately 20 to 24 firm-ripe and large peaches (8 to 10 pounds)

8 cups sugar

You will need 3 large pots of water, a wire rack to fit inside the pots, 12 pint jars, lids and bands.

In two large pots, deep enough so that the pint jars can sit on the wire rack and be fully covered in water, bring a lot of water to a boil.  Will take time, so go ahead with other steps as the water comes to a full boil.

Mark an x on the tip end of each peach to help with the peeling.  Scald the peaches for 30 seconds each in a different large pot of boiling water.  Here is a before and after shot of the peaches.

Let cool on a baking tray.  When cool enough to handle, peel away the skin, pit the peach, and cut into fourths.  Remove any bruised and brown parts.  Place peach pieces in scalded jars*, 1 and a half to two peaches per jar.

Meanwhile, in a medium sauce pan bring the sugar and 8 cups of water to a boil, and let cook for about 10 minutes, or until the syrup has thickened to the consistency of maple syrup.  

It's a lot of sugar!

Fill the jars with the sugar syrup, leaving 1/4 inch of room at the top.  At this stage you can add spices to the jars, we put crushed cardamom pods (one per jar) in some, a small spring of rosemary in others.  Using a chopstick, make sure there are no air bubbles trapped under the fruit pieces.  Wipe the mouths of the jars with a clean cloth, cover with the lids, and screw the bands on until tight.

When the water has come to a boil, gently lower your jars into the water.  Beginning your timer when the water returns to a boil (this may take time), process peaches for 25 minutes.  Make sure they are covered with water the entire time.  Remove the jars from the water and let cool.  You will hear them *pop!* as they seal.

*  To scald the jars: since you will process the peaches for more than 10 minutes, you do not need to sterilize the jars.  Instead, when your water for processing comes to a boil, dip the bottles for just a few seconds each into the water, remove and keep them waiting.  Do the same for the rings.  And when the water is at a simmer (either lower the temperature, or the temperature will lower as you scald the jars), simmer the lids so that the bands soften.

Eugenia Bone's website is a great resource for preservation advice.  She is very cautious, and clear in her instructions.