My Honey Pear Preserves Recipe is a delicious accompaniment to any cheese platter. Made with dried cherries and an edible honeycomb, it’s a perfect party appetizer and goes great with soft cheeses like Brie, Camembert or Reblochon.
Do you ever get into a rut with the food you buy? I know I do. I’m usually rushing through the grocery store just tossing our favorite staples into the cart. Bananas? Check. Apples? Got them! Baby spinach? Okey dokey! We’re on a roll – let’s keep moving!
So when my son asked me to buy him some pears the other day, I was caught off guard. According to him, I only bought fruit for his sister and he was tired of apples and bananas. I thought the request was a little bit odd because he never eats pears, but who was I to say no to a kid asking for more fruit?!
On my next shopping trip, I purchased a gorgeous amount of Anjou pears. They’ve always been my favorite and I figured that their sweet, yet mild taste would appeal to him. Unfortunately, I forgot that he was getting a palette expander put in the next day, which meant no solids for at least a week.
With a bowl full of pears sitting in front of me, and my oldest feeling down in the dumps because he was on a “baby food” diet, I decided that I would do what I always do when I’m stressed. I’d make some jam. Yep, you heard me right. I make jam when I’m stressed, or sad, or overwhelmed. Something about cooking fruit on the stove and turning it into lovely jars of jam really calms my soul. It’s very odd, I know – but I’m a bit quirky like that.
Since my son loves honey and I had all of these Anjou pears staring at me, I decided to make some Honey Pear Preserves with Dried Cherries. It sounds fancy schmancy and looks super cool, but it was fairly easy to make.
As I dug around in the pantry, I also found an enormous carton of dried cherries that no one was eating and a jar of Don Victor Honey, so I decided they’d both go into the jam. I bought the honey weeks ago when I saw that it had honeycomb in it and I thought the kids would get a big kick out of trying it.
As expected, my kids were pretty interested in the honeycomb “experiment.” They thought it was really funny that the honeycomb acted – and tasted – like honey-flavored bubblegum. You can actually break off a piece of the comb and then chew it like bubble gum. Once the honey is gone, you can either politely spit the wax out or swallow it.
Luckily for me, my son loved the Honey Pear Preserves and happily ate it by the spoonful. He even managed to eat some baked brie and leftover honey. My daughter and husband liked it too, so I’m pretty sure that I’ll be making it again for the holidays.
HONEY PEAR PRESERVES RECIPE
Ingredients:
- 1 Meyer lemon
- 4 Anjou pears
- 1/2 cup dried cherries
- 1/3 cup honey with honeycomb (I used Don Victor brand.)
- 1/3 cup turbinado sugar
Directions:
Step 1: Cut lemon in half. Place a large strainer over the stockpot – this will catch the seeds from the lemon and keep them from getting into your jam. Squeeze all of the juice out of the lemon into the strainer and stockpot.
Step 2: Peel and cut your pears into large chunks. Add them to the stockpot along with the dried cherries. Stir in lemon juice immediately to prevent the pears from browning.
Step 3: Turn the heat to medium and add turbinado sugar and honey. Stir often or the honey mixture will stick to the bottom of your stockpot, especially if you are using stainless steel like we do! Cook for approximately 10 minutes, then smash fruit with a potato masher. (If you like your preserves more smooth-textured than chunky, you can remove some of the heated fruit at this point and chop it up in a blender. But be careful. To make sure you don’t get burned, cover the blender lid with a towel – the heated fruit and steam can burn pop the lid off.)
Step 4: Cook for approximately 10 more minutes, stirring often. Remove from heat at the 20-minute mark. Do not keep cooking as the preserves will continue to set as it cools.
Step 5: Place preserves into any kind of clean, sterilized container (canning jar) until you are ready to use it. Leave conserve sitting out at room temperature for 1 hour to cool down before putting it in the refrigerator. Use conserve within 2-3 days.
Happy Jam Making,
Denine
This post originally appeared on We Know Stuff here.
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