Markets of Canada | Making Peach & Ice Wine Jam in Niagara-on-the-Lake

Welland’s Farmers Market in Niagara-on-the-Lake is not nearly as vast as the mind-boggling markets I visited in Montreal and Quebec but it’s plenty big enough to offer a wide selection and is a wonderful place to buy local and regional produce. Fruits, vegetables, fresh meat and dairy, cheese, honey, charcuterie, baked goods and other food and drink products are all on offer, sold by friendly, helpful and knowledgeable vendors.

Niagara-on-the-Lake Ontario Canada - Kavey Eats © Kavita Favelle-103102 Niagara-on-the-Lake Ontario Canada - Kavey Eats-103825
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Usually, I’d take my time and explore everything the market had to offer, but on the day of our visit I was focused on just one main ingredient – peaches!

Our hosts, chefs Anna and Michael Olson set us a challenge, giving us just 30 minutes of shopping time at the market and $15 Canadian dollars with which to buy our core ingredients to make either a sweet or savoury condiment back at Niagara College’s Canadian Food and Wine Institute where Michael is a chef professor. (The Institute is incredible, by the way, not only is there an expansive professional cookery school, the college also boasts a teaching brewery, a commercial teaching winery and a full-service training restaurant. With onsite vineyards, hop yards, and organic gardens, students can also also focus on the agricultural production of ingredients if they wish.)

Over the previous several days (in Montreal, Quebec City and here in Niagara-on-the-Lake), I had admired basket upon basket of gorgeous ripe Ontario peaches at every market and fruit store I’d visited so I quickly decided to make a peach jam.

I raced around all the stalls selling peaches to compare the taste, ripeness and prices of the many varieties on offer – Baby Gold, Flaming Fury, P24, Pierre and Redstar. I decided on Flaming Fury from Tony’s stall after a tasting that clinched the deal.

Niagara-on-the-Lake Ontario Canada - Kavey Eats © Kavita Favelle-120102

I had two ideas to try with my gorgeous Flaming Fury Ontario peaches – a peach and ice wine jam or a peach and honey one. In the end I decided to make both, using some ice wine kindly provided by Anna, and a locally produced honey I bought at the market. I chose a robustly flavoured buckwheat honey from Charlie bee that packed a proper punch of flavour.

We had a few challenges during our cook – an unexpected fire alarm and ensuing evacuation meant we all raced out (I stopped to turn off the stoves first) and it was a long wait (in the tasting area of the teaching brewery, plus a walk around one of the greenhouses) while the fire personnel checked the entire cooking school building before clearing us to go back in. On returning to our classroom we discovered that the gas had not yet been turned back on so had to made a quick switch to another, where we were able to use plug-in electric cookers to continue cooking our condiments!

Niagara-on-the-Lake Ontario Canada - Kavey Eats © Kavita Favelle-0092

Flaming Fury Peach & Niagara Ice Wine Jam

This recipe can be scaled up or down to according to how much fruit you have.

Ingredients

  • 750 g peeled, cored peaches , variety of your choice
  • 500 g caster suagr
  • 125 ml ice wine of your choice, divided into 50ml and 75ml

Notes

I used a locally-made Henry of Pelham Vidal ice wine (2010). You can use any ice wine of your choice, or substitute a different sweet liqueur or fortified wine.

Instructions

  • Chop the peaches, to roughly half inch sized pieces.
  • Place chopped peaches, sugar and 50 ml of the ice wine into a large, flat-bottomed pan and turn on the heat, at low to start until the sugar melts and the peaches start to release their juices, and then to medium-high.
  • Use a jam thermometer to cook the jam until it reaches 104 °C (219 °F). Alternatively, you can assess for readiness by checking the set of the jam, but I find both the wrinkle test and spoon test more of a faff than using a thermometer.
  • The timing for cooking can vary enormously depending on how ripe the peaches are and how much sugar and water content they have. Keep an eye on the pan and stir regularly to stop the jam from catching.
  • Once you have reached 104 °C or have tested successfully for set, take the jam off the heat and allow to cool for a minute before stirring in the additional 75 ml of ice wine.
  • Bottle hot into sterilised jars or serve warm over vanilla ice cream.

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To our surprise, after we finished cooking all our pans were set out for Anna, Michael and Anna’s right-hand helper Lisa to taste test, something they took quite seriously and which turned us all into nervous wrecks. To our relief, everything passed muster and we enjoyed the savoury creations with some local sausages, coleslaw and snacks before spooning my warm peach jam over vanilla ice cream for afters.

If you’d like to learn more about ice wine – how it’s made and some great wineries to visit – do check out my recent post on Enjoying Ice Wine in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

More farmers markets and market neighbourhoods across Canada:

 

Kavey Eats visited Ontario as a guest of Destinations Canada. With additional thanks to Anna and Michael Olson for being our hosts, and Diane Helinski for being our tour manager and guide.

Please leave a comment - I love hearing from you!
18 Comments to "Markets of Canada | Making Peach & Ice Wine Jam in Niagara-on-the-Lake"

  1. lisa

    Wow! What a fab trip!! I’ve never tried ice wine before, but love fortified wines!
    This sounds like an awesome trip, I’d love to visit Canada one day, and this cookery school sounds like a great idea. Thanks Kavey, as always inspiring my wonderlust!

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    Aah Lisa, can’t ask for anything more than inspiring others to travel too! That’s a huge compliment. If you enjoy other sweet fortified wines, you should hopefully love ice wine – do see my recent post to understand more about how they are made, if that is of interest.

    Reply
  2. kaveyeats

    Thank you, Camilla, I’m so glad you picked up on all those different varieties, it was one of the things that really impressed me, not just that there were so many available in a small market but that every seller sold them by variety, and consumers obviously do have interest in the variety! I loved that!

    Reply
  3. Helen at Casa Costello

    I’m new to ice wine like Lisa but also love fortified wines. You have inspired me to research ice wine later on. I love the sound of the different peach varieties – Love this time of year when fruit starts to be at its best.

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    Oh Helen, if you enjoy other sweet fortified wines you’ll surely enjoy ice wine! I’ve written a previous post about it, just added the link at the end of this post, if you’d like to find out more about how it’s made.

    Reply
  4. Helen @ Fuss Free Flavours

    I love the contrast of a hot or warm sauce over ice cream. It is so amazingly good.

    Canadian ice wine is a thing of beauty, and it is too bad that it is relatively hard to get hold of in the UK, although we did have an amazing glass of it last night when out for dinner.

    Reply
  5. kaveyeats

    Heh, thanks Bintu, the name comes from the variety of peaches, that’s what they are called, impossible to resist!?

    Reply
  6. kaveyeats

    Lovely with freshly baked bread and salted butter! Thank you Laura!

    Reply
  7. Harriet Millstone

    I’ve made many kinds of wine jelly, including port wine and champagne, to give as Christmas gifts. This year I’d like to try an ice wine jelly but I can’t find a recipe that tells me how much to cut back on the sugar to accommodate the sweetness of the wine. I was wondering if you could help me find such a recipe. I’d like to make a clear jelly, not a fruit jam. Many thanks.

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    Hi Harriet, that sounds really delicious but I’m afraid it’s not a recipe I’ve tried. I hope you can find a good recipe!

    Reply

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