Pear Butter and Pear Syrup

Posted on by theexileskitchen by Amanda Ellison Anglin

My oldest son’s pear trees are bearing now and he gifted me with a bucket full.  So, I’ve spent a good part of the day making pear butter and pear syrup. It’s  not hard to make and using the crockpot keeps you from having to babysit the pot of pears.

Pear butter is a great on a pb-n-j, or spread on a waffle or between the layers of a buttered biscuit.

Ingredients:

8 cups cooked down pears

Enough water to cover the pears

Juice and zest of 1 navel orange

3 cups sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Scant pinch of salt

What I Did:

I peeled the pears and cut them into pieces. (I didn’t discard the cores. I’ll share what a did with them in a minute.) They were then put into an 8 quart pot with enough water to just cover them. They simmered till they were tender.

Next the cooked pears were put in the crockpot and pureed with an emulsion blender.

To the pears the juice and zest of one navel orange  was added along with 3 cups of white sugar, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and a pinch of salt. It was stirred up well, the crockpot turned to the High setting and the lid clamped on.

I removed the crockpot lid every hour and stirred the pear mixture, scraping the sides and bottom well. The color was darker each time I checked it. It was also thickening up.

After 4 hours, the pears were a medium brown and a nice spreading consistency. Pretty half pint canning jars were filled and placed in the water bath canner and processed for 10 minutes.

Now, those pear cores. While the pears were cooking I simmered the pear cores as I did the pears. About 45 minutes. Then the cores were strained through a sieve. The pear juice was poured into a 3 quart pot. Then the juice and zest of a navel orange were added, along with 1 1/2 cup of white sugar and 1/2 a teaspoon of cinnamon. It was stirred together over medium heat till the sugar disolved and then simmered to thicken up. This made 3 half pint jars of syrup and they were processed as the pear butter.

The syrup will be wonderful to add to tea or sparkling water or drizzled over a pancake.

I hope this inspires you to try your hand at making a fruit butter. Easy. Tasty.

I tasted tested with a few crackers.

Blessings from the Exile’s Kitchen.

Sweet Potato Brownies

Posted on by theexileskitchen by Amanda Ellison Anglin

Baked, casserolled, fried, candied; I wanted to do something different with the sweet potatoes on the kitchen counter. Looking up recipes on the internet brought me to making this new version of an old classic.

Ingredients:

1/2  stick of Land-O-Lakes butter

1 cup Allergen Free chocolate chips

1 egg

1/2 cup of white, granulated sugar

1 medium sweet potato baked, peeled and mashed (I had baked a few sweet potatoes for supper the other night and had an extra left over)

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup selfrising flour

1/2 cup chopped pecans divided (half in thr batter and half sprinkled on top)

What to do:

Preheat oven to 350°. Prepare a 9×9 baking dish with vegetable spray and set aside.

In a 2 quart pot over medium heat, melt the butter. Remove from heat.

Then add in the chocolate chips, stirring with a whisk till smooth. Next add in the sugar and egg incorporating well. Add in the mashed sweet potato, still using the whisk, beating to break up any lumps of sweet potato.

Next, using a spoon, fold in the self-rising flour and half of the pecans. When all the flour is incorporated, pour into the prepared baking dish and sprinkle the remaining chopped pecans on top.

Place in oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes,  until a toothpick placed in the middle comes out clean. Cool and cut into squares. 

The sweet potato flavor is very subtle and some may not notice it at all. Hey, a great way to sneak in a vegetable to that picky eater.

Serve with whip topping or ice cream or just by themselves. Well, how ’bout with a cup of coffee?

Sweet blessings from the Exile’s Kitchen.