Recipe Pear, Verjuice and Saffron Butter

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This is one of those strange ones I came across 4 or 5 years ago now. The use of the term butter for the preservation of fruit. I believe it's an American term rather than a British one and refers to a pureed version of the fruit that is traditionally then cooked down into a thicker pureé in an oven at a low temperature . Slow cookers have become the more common method now ,but I lack one of those so I'm back to the oven...
Fruit butters are used like jams so in this case ours' are destined for adding to our porridge in the morning but you can also spread it on toast or warm scones.

The ingredients can and do vary and in their most basic form are simply the fruit in question. You need no sugar because you're concentrating the fruits own natural sugars making it sweeter. Typically the butter turns brown as the sugars caramelise, however possibly because of the addition of saffron, or perhaps that of the verjuice, mine went dark pink. The pink that is typically described as dusky pink.

I chanced upon 14-15 comice pears reduced for quick sale last weekend whilst shopping and for around about £1.45 (I paid less than $3 Australian dollars) I had the pears. My plan had been a straight pear butter, but I started to wonder what saffron would add to the pears and when I looked it up, saffron and pears feature together more often than I'd realised . Further more they were often partnered with white wine. Not drinking (much at all) I had verjuice not wine available and so after a taste test , verjuice was also added to counter some of the sweetness of the pears.

A lot of preservation of fruit isn't quantity specific so all I can tell you is roughly how many pears to use to 250ml of verjuice (you can use a dry white wine if you can't obtain verjuice).

Ingredients
14-15 really ripe pears, peeled, cored and chopped roughly
250ml verjuice
4-5 strands Saffron

Method
  1. Put the pears into a saucepan along with the verjuice (or dry white wine). If you're not using verjuice or is substitute, leave the saffron out until the pears are sitting in their own juices. Gently heat the covered pan until the pears are well stewed. It will take some time (an hour or more).
  2. Remove the pears from the heat and allow to cool until safe to put into a liquidiser or blender. Blend until totally smooth and return to an open ovenproof dish. The shallower the better, but this means it will also caramelise or even burn much more easily so it's a balancing act. Turn the oven on to a low heat, just over the boiling point of water. You want the pureé to simmer gently, not boil over. Now keep checking it hourly, stir and when it's started to thicken and caramelise and is at the thickness you want, you can get ready to jar up your produce.
  3. You'll need sterile jam jars . Wider mouth ones are easier unless you have the jam funnel. Sterilise that and the lids plus scrapers and teaspoons. I can't tell you how many because it will vary considerably but I needed 3 and a little bit more (that went into a ramekin for going onto our porridge in the morning).
 
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This is one of those strange ones I came across 4 or 5 years ago now. The use of the term butter for the preservation of fruit. I believe it's an American term rather than a British one and refers to a pureed version of the fruit that is traditionally then cooked down into a thicker pureé in an oven at a low temperature . Slow cookers have become the more common method now ,but I lack one of those so I'm back to the oven...
Fruit butters are used like jams so in this case ours' are destined for adding to our porridge in the morning but you can also spread it on toast or warm scones.

The ingredients can and do vary and in their most basic form are simply the fruit in question. You need no sugar because you're concentrating the fruits own natural sugars making it sweeter. Typically the butter turns brown as the sugars caramelise, however possibly because of the addition of saffron, or perhaps that of the verjuice, mine went dark pink. The pink that is typically described as dusky pink.

I chanced upon 14-15 comice pears reduced for quick sale last weekend whilst shopping and for around about £1.45 (I paid less than $3 Australian dollars) I had the pears. My plan had been a straight pear butter, but I started to wonder what saffron would add to the pears and when I looked it up, saffron and pears feature together more often than I'd realised . Further more they were often partnered with white wine. Not drinking (much at all) I had verjuice not wine available and so after a taste test , verjuice was also added to counter some of the sweetness of the pears.

A lot of preservation of fruit isn't quantity specific so all I can tell you is roughly how many pears to use to 250ml of verjuice (you can use a dry white wine if you can't obtain verjuice).

Ingredients
14-15 really ripe pears, peeled, cored and chopped roughly
250ml verjuice
4-5 strands Saffron

Method
  1. Put the pears into a saucepan along with the verjuice (or dry white wine). If you're not using verjuice or is substitute, leave the saffron out until the pears are sitting in their own juices. Gently heat the covered pan until the pears are well stewed. It will take some time (an hour or more).
  2. Remove the pears from the heat and allow to cool until safe to put into a liquidiser or blender. Blend until totally smooth and return to an open ovenproof dish. The shallower the better, but this means it will also caramelise or even burn much more easily so it's a balancing act. Turn the oven on to a low heat, just over the boiling point of water. You want the pureé to simmer gently, not boil over. Now keep checking it hourly, stir and when it's started to thicken and caramelise and is at the thickness you want, you can get ready to jar up your produce.
  3. You'll need sterile jam jars . Wider mouth ones are easier unless you have the jam funnel. Sterilise that and the lids plus scrapers and teaspoons. I can't tell you how many because it will vary considerably but I needed 3 and a little bit more (that went into a ramekin for going onto our porridge in the morning).
Great description. Great recipe. I love the simplicity of just 3 ingredients.
I also like the re-use of the Tomato Chutney jar.
 
We had friends come around last night for drinks, someone bought pear and hazelnut cheese, it was bluch.
Threw most of it out. However everyone loved the masdaam I got, and a smokey cheddar.

Russ
 
This sounds delicious! I made some apple butter a while ago and wonder if saffron would work in that. Having said that, the taste of pears is more subtle so I can see that saffron would complement them perfectly.
 
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