Pear butter is a great way to preserve excess pears. Unlike jam, it doesn’t require pectin and is made by cooking and pureeing the fruit with sugar and spices. It can be used as a spread or topping and is available to purchase.
Anyone with a pear tree can face the yearly difficulty that occurs when too many pears are left behind. The ripe fruit won’t stay long in the fridge, and some people will simply allow the pears to rot on the trees, if they can’t find others to take them home. An alternative is to make pear butter. This is a type of method of preserving fruit, similar to jam or preserves that creates a spread with a thick, buttery texture and lots of delicious taste.
Unlike most jams and jellies, Pear Butter doesn’t require pectin. Instead, most fruit butters are simply allowed to cook until they resemble fruit gravy. The next step is to mix or process the fruit or pass it through a sieve so that the texture becomes smooth and velvety. Once the fruit mixture is pureed or sieved, it is cooked more with the addition of sugar and sweet spices such as cinnamon and nutmeg.
There are a number of recipes for pear butter and they may differ slightly in the amount of sugar added and cooking directions. Some people cook pears with the skin on and then remove the skin by straining the mixture after it’s cooked. Others feel this makes the resulting pear texture too gritty, so peel and slice the pears first. It is not always necessary to use fresh pears. There are pear butter recipes that use canned well-drained pears or even pear sauce. Some recipes are made in clay pots and some are made on the stove.
One difference between pear butter and most jellies is that the sugar is added much later in the butters. The amount of sugar can really vary, and some recipes suggest using brown sugar instead of white granulated sugar. This can impart a caramel flavor to the resulting butterscotch and can be a great suggestion for making caramel apple butter too. Added spices are important in creating the difference between jams and fruit butters. Most popular jams don’t include spices, although there are some exceptions.
Another distinction between jams and butters is thickness. In general, pear butter will be slightly thinner than jam and also lacks translucency. It also usually doesn’t have pieces of fruit because the fruit has been pureed. There are some recipes that allow people to keep small pieces of fruit in the mix, but the texture is less buttery.
Pear butter can be used in many ways. It is excellent spread on toast or biscuits. A few drops can be added to yogurt, cottage cheese or hot cereal like oatmeal. A quick pear sauce can be made by heating butter, and this can be used to top things like vanilla ice cream. There are numerous uses for this fruit butter and it certainly solves the problem of leftover pears. For those who aren’t lucky enough to have this problem, pear butter is also made by a number of jelly and jam companies and can be purchased easily.
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