Amazing Pear Butter

Many, many years ago, we planted a pear tree.  This pear tree produces dozens and dozens of pears at the end of every summer.  Some years when I felt ambitious, I would harvest the pears and take them to work for my colleagues to take home.  During years when I was extremely busy (which were most years) I told my friends and family to come pick pears for themselves and from time to time, I actually tried finding recipes requiring pears so that my fruit would have a purpose.  

It is now the end of summer, I am finally retired, my pear tree is full of pears, I have been harvesting tomatoes and peppers out of my new garden for the purpose of creating and preserving salsa and pasta sauce, how can I not devote time and attention to these pears?  I take to the wonderful social media site we all know as Pinterest and find what looks like a tasty yet simple Vanilla Cinnamon Pear Butter recipe.  We are not really sweet eaters, so I wanted to find a recipe for something I could preserve and give away to friends and family.  The Pear Butter seemed to be exactly what I was looking for.  Similar to my approach to the Jalapeño Pepper Jelly recipe, I decided to try it out with one batch, evaluate, then either move forward or dump the idea.  

One batch used 28 pears, an array of interesting spices, fresh fruit juice from an orange and a lemon and a little sugar.  Compared to the jalapeño jelly, the pear butter had much less sugar.  Except for pealing all of the pears, the pear butter was very easy to make.  New at preserving, I did not consider the size of the jars in relation to the product I was preserving.  Pear Butter isn’t something that is used in large amounts so although I used a larger jar on the 1st batch, I used 8 oz. jelly jars on the subsequent batches.    

I ended up making many, many batches.  The taste - awesome!  The combination of fresh pears with cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg and cardamom was perfect.  In my opinion, the cardamom really makes this recipe.  I offered it to my Labor Day End of Summer Party guests and they loved it!  We used it for a dip with cinnamon pita chips.  Since then, I have used it on a bagel and toast in the morning.  A friend suggested putting it on ice cream.  I have also read that it's great on chicken or pork chops!  It has the same consistency as apple butter except thicker and chunkier with small chunks of pear.  

After promising my daughter we would give out homemade favors at her baby shower, (yes, pear butter) I have made close to 100 jars!  I have given jars to friends and family, and I will be taking plenty with me when I go to visit my son and daughter-in-law to see their new house in a couple of weeks.  I believe I could make a small fortune selling this stuff!  I have definitely stumbled upon a treasure!