apple-pear butter
Turns out apple butter is pretty easy to make. It just takes some patience to wait for everything to reduce. I threw in a few Bosc pears because they were here and on the verge of rotting into a brown mess. Spread this stuff on toast, biscuits, whole wheat muffins (like I did), pancakes, nut butter sandwiches, meaty sandwiches, melted cheese sandwiches, bagels with cream cheese, vanilla ice cream… you get what I’m getting at.
about 4 pounds (10-12 medium or so) apples and/or pears
1 cup apple cider
small cinnamon stick (optional) or some other blend of warm spices
1/3 cup sugar
a few squeezes of lemon juice
Peel the apples and/or pears and cut them up into chunks. Combine with apple cider and cinnamon stick in a pot (it should be filled about halfway up). Bring to a boil then lower to a simmer and cook until the fruit gets soft, about 30 minutes. Remove cinnamon stick. Pureeing is optional; you can make your fruit butter as smooth or chunky as you’d like. Add sugar and lemon juice to the pureed fruit. Cook mixture over low heat, stirring occasionally, until it has reduced and thickened. This may take a few hours. Be careful towards the end, because you don’t want scorched apple butter stuck to the bottom of your pot. You can do some real canning after this, or you can just store it in a jar in the fridge.
