Pear Butter

A coworker brought in some pears to share, so I came home with half a dozen pears and a desire to make something tasty. Some searching brought me to pear butter and considering my fascination with apple butter, I decided to give it a try.

Makes: ~2 half pint jars

Ingredients
2.5 pounds pears
1/4 cup water
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp lemon zest
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp almond extract
1 tbsp lemon juice

Directions
PEEL and CORE pears
QUARTER pears

ADD pears and water to a large saucepan on medium heat



COVER
COOK for 30 minutes or until pears are soft
ADD water and STIR as necessary to prevent pears from sticking

REMOVE from heat
PUREE in a food processor

RETURN to saucepan
ADD brown sugar, lemon zest, nutmeg, almond extract, and lemon juice
COOK over medium-low heat until a butter like consistency is reached (about 1 hour)

BOIL a large stock pot of water
ADD jars
BOIL for 5 minutes to sterilize the jars (see this post for pictures)
REMOVE jars from water
DRY throughly

LADLE butter into sterilized jars
LEAVE 1/4" headspace
RUN a plastic knife through butter to remove air bubbles
SEAL with lids and rings

BOIL large stockpot of water
ADD jars of butter
BOIL for 10 minutes to seal

REMOVE from heat
LET COOL

LABEL

My Thoughts
1. This was ridiculously easy. And delicious. This is a great starter recipe if you are interested in jaming or canning but scared of the process. It's practically fool-proof. : )

2. I found that six smallish pears gave me 2.5 pounds of pears (prior to being peeled, cored, and quartered) and that gave us 2 half-pint jars and some extra. I would plan about 1 pear per half-pint jar you want to yield plus 1 or 2 extra for good measure. Just make sure you have some nice bread on hand for eating the extras while they are still warm. Yum!