Poached Peaches

As I was driving to work one day last week I happened to hear Russell Blaikie of Must Wine Bar describing his recipe for poached peaches on ABC 7.20 radio and the thought occurred to me that it might be a nice Christmas gift to give, especially as peaches are now in season and easy to get hold of.

First you get your peaches which must be firm to the touch as they will disintegrate if they are already ripe.

Then halve the peaches and remove the stones.

For each four peaches you will need 500 mls of water and one cup of sugar. If you want you can substitute 150 mls of the water with white wine. Add the sugar to the liquid, pop in a cinnamon stick, and dissolve the sugar over gentle heat. Let this bubble for a little while so that it reduces a bit. Then add the peaches.

Test the consistency of the peaches after two to three minutes and as soon as they feel soft to touch turn off the heat and remove the peaches from the syrup. Put them on a plate and allow them to cool.

Once both the peaches and the syrup have cooled put the peaches gently into glass jars (I used a spatula to do this) and then pour in sufficient syrup to cover the fruit. The syrup is a lovely pinky colour so the jars looks quite inviting.

I finished mine off with brown paper covering and string.

I used medium glass jars and each jar held 4 peaches.