Farmhouse Pear Butter Recipe: Rustic & Tasty

A pear butter recipe was not on my radar before I went Googling for ideas on what we could use the abundance of pears on our tree for. Clearly, we could eat them, but our pears don’t have a lot of taste when raw. From recent experience, however, they taste really yummy when cooked.

Enter Pear Butter.

What is Farmhouse Pear Butter?

To the uninitiated Australian, pear butter is a cross between pureed fruit and jam. It can be as chunky or smooth as you like, depending on how much you decide to blend it. Anywhere you would traditionally eat your favourite jam you can use Pear butter, so think toast, scones, muffins or even in a cake. I have to admit it’s not something I’d ever heard of until my Instagram friends suggested it but I’m so glad I did. I can see so many uses for it, even possibly as a meat accompaniment. Like apple sauce can be for roast pork, pear butter might be nice with lamb and vegetables.

Why I made It

The farm has an overabundance of pears this year and I’ve been looking for ways to utilise them, other than feeding them to the cows and chickens as treats. Having never been a fan of the raw pear as a fruit to eat, finding recipes that I can make that are quick and easy is a priority. I spent some time looking for pear recipes that could be stored and frozen. Now everyone is staying at home, having a source of food straight from the pantry is a must. Home-cooked fare that’s free of chemicals and preservatives must mean we’re caring for our insides while we hibernate.

How to Make Pear Butter

The process for making my Farmhouse pear butter is simple and very quick. (Because you know that’s how I roll) The entire recipe takes around half an hour and the pear butter will last up to three months in the fridge. It can also be frozen for up to six months, meaning you’ll have this delicious treat on hand well into Spring!

Ingredients

The ingredients for making pear butter don’t seem to differ that much and I wasn’t that stringent in the amounts of spices. I added to taste. In fact, I used this basic recipe from Spruce Eats

• 1 pound pears (any type, washed, stemmed and cored)
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 to 1 cup sugar

And then added some of the ingredients below to add more Autumn flavour to our pears. This recipe is from gimmesomeoven.com

• 1.3kg ripe pears, peeled, cored and diced
• 3 Tbsp. honey
• 1 Tbsp. lemon juice
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• pinch of ground nutmeg
• pinch of ground cloves

What To Do

1. Wash your jars and the lids in hot soapy water, but do not dry them. Instead, leave them to stand upside down on a roasting tray while they’re still wet. Pop the tray of clean, wet jars and lids into a preheated oven at 160-180ºC for about 15 mins.
2. While the jars are in the oven, stir all ingredients together in a medium saucepan. Bring to the boil over medium-high heat, reduce the heat and simmer for about 50 minutes, covering so that the lid is slightly open. The water does not look like a lot but the pears release their own moisture. Just keep an eye on them.
3. Once the pears are soft, transfer them to a food processor. Pulse until smooth. I used the stick blender for this and kept the mixture a little chunky. The texture depends totally on you.
4. Transfer to jars, seal and refrigerate until ready to use.

Pear butter is super yummy on toast or on a slice of my beer bread. Try it, I l know you’ll be a convert too!

Don’t forget to Pin this recipe, so you can try it later!