Caramel Pear Butter
I love my pear tree. When you let the pears ripen on the tree they get far juicier and sweeter than store bought ones. But I don't spray or anything and so I get crop damage from bugs, squirrels, whatever.
So I took all the less than stellar specimens, cut off the damaged portions, and turned them into pear butter. I also tossed in a few apples I had and a really ripe banana that was on the counter. But the base recipe was as follows:
1/4 cup apple juice
6 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
7 pounds ripe pear
3 cups packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
Combine the apple juice and 4 tablespoons lemon juice in a pot. Peel, core, and chop your pears, adding them to the juice mixture to prevent browning. Then cook over medium heat until pears release enough juice to make mixture boil, stirring frequently, about 16 minutes. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer, stirring often, 20 minutes. Blend with an immersion stick blender (or run the whole thing through a food mill in batches... the blender is so much easier, buy one if you don't have one). Add the last 2 tablespoons lemon juice, brown sugar, nutmeg, and salt. Boil until sugar dissolves, simmer uncovered until reduced to 8 cups, stirring ever 5 to prvent scorching, about 1 hour.
Can using typical canning process for jam and jelly.
I ended up making 15 jars. Its pretty good. I'm going to use some as a glaze for porkchops.
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Originally Posted by cordellpascall
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