Only those with a strong stomach should attempt this thick, hot beef stew. Although you can cook it on the stovetop, I like to use a slow cooker. fantastic when topped with mashed potatoes or rice.
| Prep Time: | 20 mins |
| Cook Time: | 1 hr 30 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 50 mins |
| Servings: | 96 |
| Yield: | 6 – 1/2 pint jars |
Ingredients
- 5 pounds pears – peeled, cored and diced
- ½ cup water
- 2 cups packed brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon almond extract
- 2 tablespoons limoncello liqueur
Instructions
- Place the pears and water into a pot or large saucepan. Cook over medium heat until pears are soft, about 30 minutes. Sterilize six half-pint jars and keep warm.
- Transfer pears to a food processor and pulse until they reach your desired consistency. Return to the pan, and stir in the brown sugar, lemon zest, nutmeg, almond extract and limoncello. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until the mixture reaches a thick consistency like butter, about 1 hour.
- Ladle the pear butter into the sterile jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Seal with lids and rings. Process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes to ensure a seal.
Reviews
Oh, boy! I’ve made pear butter before, and it was good, but this version is a “wow!” As other reviewers suggested, I cut the sugar in half and found it sweet enough. For the first batch, I had no limoncello, so I substituted fresh lemon juice. My husband and I ate though one jar in less than two days. This will make a terrific gift if we can stop eating it! My second batch in in the works as we speak, and I’m using both lemon juice and limoncello. I tried it on a molasses-rich rye brown bread and decided it was the perfect combination. Thanks for sharing this wonderful recipe!
I used this as a basic recipe and adapted it. I substituted 1/2 t cinnamon for the Nutmeg. I omitted the lemon zest.. I don’t limoncello, so I just added 2T lemon juice instead. And lastly, I decreased the almond to 1/4t and added 1t vanilla. My apologies to the cook for the changes, but my thanks for such a lovely, balanced recipe.
This was delicious. I chose this over other pear butters because I love lemon; I even had Limoncello on hand. The lemon slightly overpowered the pear taste, so next time I’ll leave out the zest. And I will probably only use a drop of water. Since I was using Asian pears, which tend to be runny, I used less water, and then drained all water before pureeing. This was my first canning experience…I am overflowing with Asian pears and needed something that took a lot of pears. Now I can hand out cans of yummy biscuit spread instead of raw pears to all my friends! Thank you!
I love this pear butter. It should not have chunky in the title though. I used a hand mixer to blend it right in the pot I cooked it in as well. I wasn’t sure what the consistency of butter looked like, so I cooked it until it looked like ripples in the pear bitter appeared as I stirred it. Very tasty and I didn’t think it was too lemony. I did use an imported Limoncello liqueur. Oh yum. Hard not to drink that straight while cooking this! Ha! Will do this one again.
Love this recipe. My husband thinks it is great! I added more lemon zest, in fact did not measure the lemon zest. Also added cinnamon, again did not measure, just added to taste. I’m a cinnamon freak. Instead of using a food processor used my hand processor, worked great and was able to leave in the saucepan.
I made this as is and while it’s good, next time I would reduce the sugar. It’s just a little too sweet for my taste. I do like the subtle lemon flavor with the the pear.
Honestly the greatest “online” recipe I’ve tried. I did add a teaspoon of salt to it, just too give it a little depth. Otherwise, perfect!
Very good! Yet very sweet. It almost taste like a candy. Next time I would use only one cup of sugar. Otherwise the lemon and the limoncello work PERFECTLY together bringing out a very good taste!
Great! Simple! Delicious!
No idea why this is called “Chunky” when you puree the pears and there isn’t a chunk to be found. Flavor is good but the lemon flavor doesn’t come through, and I doubled the amount of limoncello. I cooked the pears with the skin on the pureed the whole pot with a hand blender. Worked really slick that way. I opted out of the almond extract and added vanilla extract and a vanilla bean to the mixture. But, I did not add the extract or limoncello until it was good and thick because I felt it would be pointless and lost in evaporation. It was taking forever for it to thicken, so I moved it to a shallow saute pan for more surface area. It still took well over two hours.
This tasted really good, but I thought it was a bit too sweet (only used 3/4 C sugar) and it came out quite runny. Not like the spreadable “applebutter” thickness I was looking for. But that was probably my own fault, I didnt cook the fruit until soft and then simmer for an hour. I put it all into a slow cooker on high for a few hours, then used hand held blender to puree. I added some cornstarch to try to thicken it up, but that didnt work. I used lemon juice instead of the liquor (didnt have any) and omitted the zest (didnt have any of that either).
I haven’t made this yet – so I stuck with everyone else’s rating. I have a question. How long will this keep for, and where do you store it?
This recipe is wonderful! The only thing I did differently was to add lemon juice instead of liqueur (I didn’t have any).
Jenne, If you use jelly jars and seal them they should store for several months on the pantry shelf. Once the seal is broken it should be stored in the refrigerator and should be good for at least a couple of weeks. Thanks for checking out my recipe. Hope you get to try it and enjoy it as much as my family did. Jerim