Tuesday's Food: Pear Butter

So my brother-in-law and his lovely wife, Emily, just had their baby girl, Cosi. While bringing them food, I noticed their humungo pear tree in the backyard. It was laden down with so many pears, the branches were breaking. So I did what anyone would; I grabbed tons and tons pears to make all kinds of stuff with. One of my favorite things to do with fruit is make preserves, jams, and butter. I've made pear crisp (some were GREAT, one batch went REALLY bad), pear pancakes, pear butter pop tarts and pear butter. Looking for recipes for pear butter, I found quite a few. I ended up combining a few of the recipes to make my own batch. Here are the sites I used to come up with my own concoction: Pick Your Own and The Bad Girls Kitchen.

Pear Butter

20 Bartlett Pears (made into 2 quarts pear sauce...found on the Pick Your Own website)

3/4 tsp nutmeg

1/8 tsp cloves

1/4 c. OJ

2 c. sugar

1 tsp cinnamon 

Make the pear sauce as directed on website. I actually steamed the pears with the skins on and then blended the pears and skins together using my hand mixer. Add to a large crockpot along with the rest of the ingredients. Make sure your lid is not fully on. The hot air needs to be released, otherwise the butter will not thicken. Cook on low for 12-20 hours*. Stir occasionally and continue to heat until the butter reaches your desired consistency. I like my pear butter about as thick as Cracker Barrel's apple butter. Can and store. This made about 20 1/2 pint jars for me. 

*Note: It's best to really start this process around 2 or so in the afternoon and then let cook until dinner the next evening. You will wake up to the wonderful smell of Autumn and have pear butter ready with biscuits for dessert. Also, I recommend leaving the lid off the crockpot the last few hours or so to thicken, but be prepared for a mess on your counters as it bubbles. The mess will be worth the tasty pear butter. :)