Flash Freezing Peaches
Peach season has come and gone. I was lucky enough to have my neighbor-family ask me over to collect peaches from their tree again this year, which was beautifully laden with ripe, juicy peaches. Tad and I loaded up in the car to pick our share, eating peaches all the while with juice dribbling down our chins and all over our hands. Thank you, Kate and Ryan for this delicious bounty! Peaches don’t grow necessarily well in Iowa as our winters are too cold and cause bud damage with late spring frosts, but the past two years have shown promise for these tender fruits. I still have a few jars of cinnamon honey spiced peaches on the shelf in the cellar, but I was in need of more to get us through the winter!
While I tend to enjoy canning peaches in syrup more than I do freezing, I decided that these peaches could be sliced and frozen to enjoy in baked goods later. I actually don’t love freezing as a preservation method all that much. While freezing is often much easier: less time consuming, less work, less sweat it also just leaves a gigantic pile of food in my deep freezer than is almost impossible to sift through. The only meat that we eat is from locally butchered animals, meaning we order a whole beef or a whole hog and store it in the freezer for the year. That takes up a lot of space! By the time I start adding frozen fruit and vegetables, things get buried and I have a hard time remembering what I have.
I like canning because it’s beautiful, easy to see, and I like how it preserves the flavor and texture of the food better.
But this post is not about canning - it’s about freezing! I chose to freeze these peaches because I simply ran out of time. In between baking for the farmer’s market, making Farm Suppers, settling Tad into the first weeks of school, and now moving… I let these peaches go a bit past their optimal canning stage. Instead, they were sliced and flash frozen, which is an incredibly easy process that is detailed below.
Canning peaches also lends to more sugar in your preserves. To can peaches, they must be canned in syrup, which you can sweeten with sugar or honey. This is not always ideal for baking!
how to freeze peaches:
STEP ONE:
Slice peaches thinly, about 1/4 inch thick. To remove the pit, simply slice peach in half and spoon out the pit.
Leave the skins on, if you prefer. If you don’t, slice an X on the bottom of each peach. Blanch in boiling water, in batches, for about 1 minute. Place immediately in an ice water bath, then slip off skins.
STEP TWO:
Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Place peach slices on baking sheets, without touching, as many as you can fit.
STEP THREE:
Cover baking sheets with plastic wrap, tightly. Place in the freezer for 12-24 hours or until peach slices are fully frozen.
STEP FOUR:
Remove peaches from freezer and place individually frozen slices into freezer safe bags or containers. Save for up to one year (and probably a little longer!).
How easy is that? You can do this same method with all fruit. It’s important to make sure you are using fruit at its peak ripeness and wash it beforehand. Of course, I already broke that rule by using overly ripened peaches. Really, it’s alright. Just know that they may go bad faster or not have as good of a flavor. If you are okay with that, then freeze away!
How do you like to save fruit? Do you prefer canning or freezing or something different?
xoxo Kayla
