Make your own fruit butter with this easy recipe from Serious Jam
(KMSP) Minneapolis - Use your favorite local fruit to create a butter you can enjoy all winter long. Whether its pears or crabapples, you can make pretty much any fruit into a delicious butter or jam.
Serious Jam owner Heidi Skoog joined the Buzz with her recipe for a hands-off fruit butter. Check out her recipe below. For more canning tips and classes visit SeriousJams.com
Hands-off Fruit Butter Recipe
What you need
- Pears, Apples, or Chestnut Crabapples (any amount)
- Cane sugar, brown sugar, or maple syrup
- Fresh squeezed lemon juice
- Apple cider, tea, wine or just water
- Spices you might like - cinnamon, clove, cardamom, vanilla
- Kitchen scale
- Food mill or food processor
- Shallow casserole dish, roasting pan or similar
- Clean jars and lids to store the fruit butter in. If you’d like to freeze it, use a straight sided jar
Directions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees
- Wash and cut fruit in half and place cut side down on a sheet pan (or pans, depending on your fruit haul). Flood the sheet pan with about 1/8th inch of liquid. Roast this in oven for 1-2 hours or until fruit is very, very soft. Remove from oven and set aside to cool for a few minutes.
- Transfer this to a food mill and process into a puree. A food mill with swiftly separate the seeds and skin from the pulp. Alternatively, if you don’t find yourself with a food mill, you can take the cooled pieces of fruit and with a small spoon, scoop out the stem and seed portion of the fruit. Then using a food processor or an immersion blender, blend to a nice smooth puree.
- Weigh the finished puree. For every pound of puree, you will need 1/2 to 3/4 pounds of the same amount of sugar. So if you have 4 pounds of puree, measure out 2-3 pounds of sugar/sweetener.
- Add in the sugar or mix of sugars, and any additional spices. Add in the splash of lemon juice. Transfer to a low shallow dish or pan and place in oven.
- Stirring every 30 minutes, let the puree cook down for several hours. The finished butter will be thick and mound up on a spoon when it has cooled. To test this, take a small spoonful out and leave at room temperature for a few minutes. If it hasn’t finished, keep cooking for a bit longer. Adjust for taste - adding in a bit more lemon juice if it tastes too sweet, or adding in a bit more spice if you’d like that.
- When finished, remove from oven and pour into warmed and clean jars. Place clean lids on top and leave to cool on the countertop. If you’d like to store the finished butter in the freezer, leave about an inch of headspace in the jar. Cool completely on the counter before storing it in the refrigerator or freezer. Label and date and use within one year.