I made spiced pears and my husband has been using them for oatmeal and ice cream topping, but i wanted to use some of them to make pear jam as an experiment. Making pear jam is a pretty easy process, and you can do it without any expensive equipment, but you can use an immersion blender if you want a really smooth jam.
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Spiced pears to use for the jam.
I used the spiced pears that I made using the pears from our tree, you can get the recipe for that here: Spiced pears recipe
Tools to use for making jam.
You can use the very basic tools for this, or use a blender to really grind up the pears. If you want the texture of a basic fruit spread, I would stick with a potato masher instead of a blender, though. The blender will really grind up the pears and will make it more like applesauce.
I’m going to say this again because you’ll be really disappointed if you use a blender and want the chunkier texture. Don’t use an immersion blender if you want more of a chunky texture, and not an applesauce texture! Seriously, don’t do it.
Start with a potato masher and a container that’s the same shape as the masher you’re using so that you can get into corners if you need to. If your potato masher is round, a round container will work fine.
I put some of the spiced pears in and started mashing them up. I didn’t add any extra spices to them, but if you want to add some additional flavor you can do that at this point.
Some things that you could add include:
- Cinnamon
- Nutmeg
- Pumpkin pie spice
- Orange extract or Grand Marnier
- Vanilla
- Cardamom
- Ginger
- Honey
Mash the pears until it’s the texture that you like, leaving some larger lumps of pears to give it texture. If you want to use the immersion blender to make it more like an applesauce smooth texture, you can do that now to really get rid of any lumps. For spreading it on bread, it’s better to leave lumps of pears because it will be more like a fruit spread that way.
Store the pear jam.
Put the jam into containers to store in the fridge or freezer. Since this is kind of jam isn’t canned using a hot water bath method, you’ll need to refrigerate it and use it relatively quickly (within a couple of weeks) unless you freeze it.
Make sure that the jars you’re using are pretty freezer-safe if you’re going to freeze them. If you use containers that aren’t airtight you can get a lot of ice inside the jar, and it will affect the flavor of the jam once you thaw it out later. I use little mason jars because I can take one jar out at a time and it’s not too much to use in a short time frame after it thaws out.
If you want to make this as gifts during the holidays, you can get labels to put on the jars, like these on Zazzle: Homemade Food Gift Labels
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Suggestions for spicing it up.
I’m the first to say that pears are pretty bland to begin with, so when you cook the spiced pears, make sure to add enough spices to perk them up. Because the spiced pears have a sugar syrup the chunky ones tend to feel like they have more flavor, but when you mash them up some of that gets lost.
You can definitely add more spices, honey, brown sugar, etc. to your jam when you’re finished if you feel like it needs a little oomph. Pear jam is a nice accompaniment to toast and sandwiches during the fall, and fall spices will enhance the experience!
For an article about making fig jam, plus some tips about immersion blenders, click here.