Making Pear Butter

This was a very productive weekend.  In addition to doing some cleaning and finding some more stuff for the garage sale, adding some things to ebay, and working with a client off and on I also was able to make some Pear Butter.  I will share with you how easy it is!  I use my slow cooker which I love!!  It has 3 different size bowls - a 2-quart, 4-quart and 6-quart.  One of the best investments I have made.  Okay to start I usually get about 15 pears.  I wash them off, remove the stems from both ends, cut out any bad spots, take off the stickers (sometimes I forget or miss a few) and then quarter them.  No need to pare or remove seeds they will all cook down.

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Then I put them in the 6-quart slow cooker pot.  I poured a little apple juice in for some starting liquid and set it on low.  Cook until the pears are softened and it will start to look like applesauce.

Spoon into a food mill/press/ricer and press.  I love my food press - my husband found it at a flea market for a couple of dollars.  I used to have a food press with the wooden pestle and then I had the stainless steel mill with the disks but I like the way the old food press works.  May be a little messy but it works!

The sauce measured out to 9 cups.

I then put the sauce into my 4-quart slow cooker pot measured out 4 cups of sugar added 1 t. vanilla and 1 t. ginger put it on low and let it cook all day and turned it on warm overnight.

 Once it cooks down and is a bit thicker than applesauce consistency it is ready.  It will thicken up a little more once it cools so don't cook it down too much.  Put them in jars or other Ball containers (I like to use their freezer containers).

You can freeze them or process the glass jars in a boiling bath.  Here is what I ended up with from my 15 pears.