From Mes Confitures by Christine Ferber

It’s been a couple of months since I last tried my hand at preserves. The other day, as I was flipping through Mes Confitures, I came across this recipe and recalled seeing the huge Washington nectarines and pears that have just started hitting the stores. Nectarines are one of my favorite fruits, and I thought that pairing them with pears was interesting. Also, this recipe calls for vanilla beans. How could I go wrong?

The recipe starts out by  simmering nectarine and pear slices in sugar, along with two split vanilla beans. After a few minutes, the mixture is turned into a bowl and left in the refrigerator overnight. The next day, the fruit, vanilla beans and all the liquid is boiled for about 10 minutes. The vanilla beans are removed and the mixture continues to boil until it reaches the set point and is jarred.

Hurray for me! I actually got the jam to set correctly. I even used almost the full amount of sugar that the recipe called for (I think I used 3 1/2 cups instead of the 3 3/4 cups called for). Unfortunately, the jam is almost too sweet. It is a lovely pale orange color with little black specks from the vanilla beans. The nectarines and pears are lovely together and the vanilla flavor is wonderful. It is just sooooo sweet.