With all the pears we’ve been gifted with, I decided to make some pear butter. It took six quarts of pear sauce to make 12 cups of pear butter.
I apologize for the quality of the pictures. I took them with my iPhone. It doesn’t do the greatest job. But it does take a pic when I can’t find my camera!
I washed the pears first.
Some of the fruit was damaged. I cut around all that, trimmed the ends and that all went out to the compost pile, which will make the box turtles very happy. We see them dining there now and then.
No need to peel or core with my handy dandy Victorio Food Strainer and Sauce Maker. Hint for when you do need to core pears: use a melon baller. Easily scoops the core out of halved pears.
I poured all the pear sauce into my big pot, and added 1/2 cup of lemon juice, a couple of star anise, 12 whole cloves, some grated cinnamon, and some freshly grated nutmeg. Next time, I’ll skip the lemon juice and add Fruit Fresh to the sauce instead. Didn’t have it on hand when I made the pear butter. I had too much sauce to put into my crock pot until it had cooked down a bit. It simmered on the stove top for about four hours. This shows the sauce down about an inch.
At that point, I transferred it to the crock pot. Filled it to the very top and turned the crock to high. In the crock pot, it doesn’t have to be watched as closely as it does on the stove top. No burning in the crock.
After it had simmered for three hours, it was down about half an inch. The crock pot takes longer, but is easier that the stove top, in my opinion. I like the fact that it just takes an occasional stir. No need to watch it so closely. During the evening, as I gave it a stir now and then, I pulled out the star anise and the whole cloves as they came to the surface.
The sauce went into the crock pot at 3:00 p.m., and was turned to high. Around 10:00 p.m., it was turned to low and left to perk away all night. No lid at any point during the process. The next morning, it was done. Thick, rich, and delicious. As you can see, the longer it cooks, the darker it gets. At this point, I asked DH to sample it and he thought it needed a little sweetening, though I thought it was fine without it. I did add 1 cup of sugar and stirred that in to suit his sweet tooth. A second taste test pronounced it just right.
I poured the pear butter into 8-oz. jelly jars and processed it in the hot water bath for ten minutes.
Twelve jars of yummy pear butter, saved for the coming months.
I’ll be making more this weekend. We still have a mountain of pears to work through. Tonight, I plan to process some for drying. And we’ll be canning more as they ripen.
~~Rhonda