My wife’s recipe for Pear Preserves. She got this from an elderly lady at Church many years ago.
Note we have only tried this with Kiefer pears and a few other varieties of European Pears. The pears that were used in the pictures below we purchased at England’s Orchard and they simply called them European pears. It worked great on them.
6 quarts of pears, 8 cups sugar (example).
Note the amount of sugar = 1.333 x the number of quarts of pears.
If you only had 4 quarts of pears (4 x 1.333) = 5.33 cups sugar.
From experience my wife says that if you have very sweet pears you can cut back on the sugar some.
Wash, peal, core and slice pears.
Try to keep your pears slices a consistent thickness… for example 3/16 of an inch.
My wife puts about half of the pear slices in a pot (Large enough to hold the entire batch) and she pours about half of the sugar over them… then she adds the rest of the pear slices and then pours the rest of the sugar on top of that.
Add a lid to the pot and let that stand overnight.
The next day bring to a boil and then turn to low heat.
Cook it stirring often on low heat for 1.5 to 2.5 hours.
The pear syrup will thicken and darken in color the longer you cook it.
She said most batches are finished in around 2 hours.
Seal in sterile jars.
TNHunter
