Pear Butter

Yesterday’s post was fast and furious. I mentioned doing a whole lot of stuff yet never gave any details.

Today I got a request for the pear butter recipe, so I’ll go into more details on that. In the picture above, the pear butter is in the half pint jars.

Basically pear butter can be used like you would use jam… and a whole bunch of other things, more on that later.

Most people will be familiar with Apple Butter, with it’s heavy flavoring of cinnamon and clove or nutmeg. Pear Butter is made the same way but the flavor is very different. Pears have a more delicate taste and are quite aromatic, so I use different spices.

Here’s how I do it.

Wash and quarter 4-5 pounds of pears, remove the stems but you can leave the blossom ends. Put all the pear quarters in a big stock pot, cover with water and bring to a boil. Boil for 20-30 minutes or until the pears are mushy.

the pears will become quite mushy and cook down a lot!

Drain off the water, but save this because it makes nice pear juice! Now get your food mill out and dump all the pears into the mill and process. What comes out the food mill will be delicious pear pulp without pits, peels or blossom ends.

Put the pear pulp in a thick bottomed pot and add the following:

• 1 cup sugar (you can add more towards the end of cooking time if needed)
• 2-4 star anise
• 1/2 t ground ginger
• 1/2 t cardamom
• 1/4 t nutmeg
• 1-2 T lemon or lime juice
• 1 t lemon or lime zest

Cook this on low heat, stirring regularly until you’re happy with the consistency, it should be thick enough to stay on a spoon and could take an hour or more.

At this point you could can it, or put it in freezer safe containers and freeze it.

I’m always struggling with freezer space, so I can it. A 10 minute hot water bath should be sufficient.

The most obvious way to use this lovely butter is to spread it on your toast or muffin, or put it on waffles, pancakes etc. Give it a try in your oatmeal, it’s good! You can add it to cookie dough (especially oatmeal cookies), try it over vanilla ice cream, you can even glaze your chicken or pork with it. Use your imagination. 🙂

At this rate it’s not going to last long…better look for another pear tree!