{How To} Peeling Peaches

In honor of peach season and to tease a few peach recipes coming down the pipeline on Plum Pie, I thought I’d post a quick tutorial on how to easily peel a peach. Seriously, it’s a cinch. Start by bringing a saucepan of water to a rolling boil.

Next, wash your peaches. Cut an “x” with your knife on the bottom of the peach.

When your water has come to a boil, carefully drop one or two peaches into the pot of water. Don’t overcrowd the pot because you want it to keep boiling. When you add the peach into the water, you cool it down a bit so only drop a few at a time. Boil the peach in the water for approximately 1 minute. We aren’t trying to cook the peaches here so when you start to see the skin peeling a bit then you know it is ready. Grab a spoon or colander spoon…

Carefully remove the peach from the boiling water. Now here is where things get tricky because you have some choices. I know, I said it was easy and I am throwing a curve ball in here but, see, most people at this point would drop the peach in an ice bath (which is basically a bowl filled with ice and water) to stop the peaches from cooking. And I would normally do what most people do in this instance BUT unfortunately, my refrigerator does not have an ice maker. And I guess I could have made ice cubes but I didn’t think about that until it was too late really (which is usually the case). The moral of the story is that if you are a refrigerator maker and you happen to be reading this blog, then please start making ice makers a standard feature on all refrigerators. Thank you.

So if you are like me and do not have an ice maker then it is perfectly fine to place your cooked peach on a board or plate and let cool. These guys can be hot so be careful before peeling. Here comes the fun part!

Carefully pull the peach skin from the “x” you marked earlier. It should come off easily if you have a ripe peach. I have found that it can be a bit more difficult if your peach isn’t at its peak but with a little extra determination, even those peaches are peel-able.