Pear Butter with Mulberries

What do you do when you have more ripe pears than you can eat? Make pear butter of course!

I have made pear butter a few times now and it has become a favorite around here. I shared a basic recipe that is tried and true, but this time I mixed it up a little and threw in some juicy mulberries we tucked into the freezer this summer. Why mulberries? Well because mulberries are very good for you! (That and Marinn asked that I make it purple.) Fruit butters are one of my favorites to make because they are fairly simple recipes and when you let your fruits condense down into a thick, creamy butter you get so much flavor in every bite.

Once again I had some wonderful people share their fruit with me this year so I started with fresh, ripe pears that were locally grown. It doesn't get better than that!

The Recipe

Ingredients

Makes approximately 8 half-pints

12 pounds pears

2 cups mulberries

2 cups sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

3 tbs lemon juice

Directions

Working in two batches; wash and quarter pears, place in large pan with berries and lemon juice. Cover and heat over medium-low heat, stirring frequently. Cook about 30 minutes, until all fruit is cooked soft. Note: If the fruit does not start releasing juices right away you may need to add 1/4 cup of water to the pan to keep the fruit from burning in the bottom. 

Spoon hot fruit into a food mill and process, discarding skin, seeds, and pulp from the core. Repeat with second batch. 

Place pear sauce into crockpot and add sugar and cinnamon. Cook on high setting without a lid until pears have reduced by half. This time varies greatly depending on thickness of sauce at beginning as well as humidity levels. It usually takes a few hours when I do it. No crockpot? No worries! You can do this step on the stove top. I know because that is how I had to make most of my butter this year after my crockpot bit the dust. If you have a heavy bottom pan you can cook your butter in that over a low heat stirring frequently. This method will still take a few hours to reduce by half. If your pans aren't very heavy then you may have to go the route I did and divide pears between a few wide pans (more evaporation room) and stand over the stove to stir, stir, stir to prevent burning. The perk to this method is the butter is reduced in about 45 minutes. Trust me, it is worth the time standing there and it smells so very good!

If you are canning you will process in a water bath for 5 minutes. This is the method I choose so I can gift them and they keep up to a year. 

If you are refrigerating then you will allow butter to cool then pour into half pint jars, seal tightly and place in fridge. They keep up to one month. 

My girls like helping when I process fruit because they eat their fill from my bowl when they think I'm not looking. They aren't shy when it comes to fresh fruit! This year is the first I've had to hide the finished product though, it has been disappearing one spoon full at a time! Now we are off to make round two with a new recipe that uses cardamom. Have you cooked with this spice before? It smells heavenly! I cannot wait to fill my house with that fragrance!