How To Make Pear Butter The Easy Way In Your Slow Cooker

Name: How To Make Pear Butter The Easy Way In Your Slow Cooker
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 12 h
Total time: 12 h 30 min
Ingredients: 1/2 bushel of pears or 7 quarts of pear sauce; 2 tsp. vanilla extract; 2 tsp. cinnamon; 1 1/2 tsp. nutmeg; 1 tbs. lemon juice; 1 to 6 cups of sugar (to taste)

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Pear butter is one of my favourite spreads! I think it’s really easy to make to, especially if you use your slow cooker to do most of the work. It’s great on toast, pancakes, muffins or over ice cream and makes a wonderful gift! Earlier this fall we took the kids to a local pick your own farm and had fun picking apples and pears. So I knew that I would want to make some pear butter to enjoy this winter.

Contents

1 Ingredients & Supplies
2 How To Make Pear Butter The Easy Way In Your Slow Cooker
- 2.1 Ingredients
- 2.2 Instructions

Ingredients & Supplies

1/2 a bushel of pears to make 7 quarts of pear sauce
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tbs. lemon juice
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 cup of sugar or to taste
large stock pot
food mill or stick blender or hand mixer
jar grabbers
jar funnel
Crockpot/slow cooker
large spoons & ladle
1 water bath canner
canning jars & lids

To make pear butter you need to start by making a pear sauce. This is the same way you can make applesauce.

You can either peel and core the pears first or if you’re going to process the cooked pears through a food mill you can skip that step. Just wash the pears and cut them into quarters.

Cover the pears with water and cook until they are tender.

Process the pears through a food mill to remove the skins, seeds and stems.

Pour your pear puree into your crock pot. I have a large crockpot and this fills mine right to the top!

Add the cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon juice, vanilla extract, and sugar. I tasted my pear sauce before adding the sugar and found it was very, very sweet. So I only added 1 cup of sugar to help with the flavour. If your pear sauce isn’t as sweet as you like then add more sugar, up to 6 cups.

If your crockpot doesn’t have enough room to hold that much sugar right now, you can add it after the sauce has cooked down some.

Yes in this pic I didn’t have the lid sitting ajar yet! Don’t forget to do that or your sauce will not reduce.

Cover the crock pot but leave the lid ajar to let it evaporate. You can tilt your lid or lay 2 wooden spoons across the top and set your lid on that.

Turn the crockpot on low or medium heat. If after 12 hours the sauce isn’t cooking down enough you can turn it up to high. Just keep an eye on it using the high setting you don’t want to burn your sauce.

Depending on how hot your crockpot cooks it can take 8 to 12 hours to cook down to a nice thick spread. I like to make mine up in the evening and let it cook overnight, it’s normally done by the next afternoon. Just cook it until it’s the consistency that you like.

Taste your pear butter if you’re not happy with the tastes then adjust the sugar & spices as needed.

If your butter has gotten too thick you can add a little pear juice to thin it out.

If you’re freezing your pear butter, let it cool then ladle into containers and freeze. Make sure to leave an inch of headspace for it to expand!

If you’re going to can your pear butter ladle it into half pint or pint jars, leaving 1/4″ headspace.

Run a spatula around the inside edge of your jars to remove any air bubbles.

Wipe the rims of the jars clean, place lids on the jars and tighten the rings finger tight.

Place jars into a water bath canner and process.

When the time is up remove the jars from the canner and place them on a towel. Let them cool undisturbed for 12 to 24 hours. Then check the seals, any jars that have not sealed should be reprocessed in the canner or placed in the fridge. Remove the jar rings and wipe the jars clean, label and store in a cool dark place.