Apple-Pear Butter

We've been getting biweekly fruit deliveries from Organics to You for a few months. Since we had built up a bit of a collection of different varieties of apples and pears, I decided I wanted to try making an apple-pear butter (if such a thing existed). With a quick google search, I found plenty of options.

Ultimately, I adapted a recipe from recipe.com for the version I ended up going with. We only had about 4 pounds of apples and pears, so I had to modify it.

Apple-Pear Butter

2 pounds pears
2 pounds apples
2 cups apple juice
1 cup dark brown sugar
½ Tbsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
¼ tsp ground cloves
juice & zest from one lemon

(I substituted 1 Tbsp of Jeff's powder deuce for the ground spices.)

I peeled and sliced the fruit with the food processor, added the rest of the ingredients, then cooked it on the stovetop for about half an hour.

I had been expecting the fruit to soften and break down, but it didn't go quite as I was hoping. So, eventually, I ended up passing the cooked fruit through the food processor again. Then it had the consistency of apple sauce and I returned it back to the stovetop to cook it down.

I let it simmer for about 45 minutes or so over low heat, stirring occasionally, until it was good and thick. Then I transferred the apple pear butter into jars. It cooked down to just over 2 pints, so I didn't bother to cook it in a hot water bath. I'll just pop the jars into the refrigerator.