AUNT BEA'S PEAR BUTTER

She let me stir with a big wooden spoon licking with abandon.

This is an old recipe I found in a drawer of old family photos. My Aunt Bea had a great old antique home in Adrian Michigan where Carl Sandburg once lived. I remember visiting her in the summer where she cooked great pots of this in her summer kitchen in the back of her wrap around porch.

She let me stir with a big wooden spoon licking with abandon.

Anyway I find it very calming spread on a think slice of homemade bread still warm from the oven...a warm vestige memory of the past.

9 cups of pears or apricots [processed fruit]
6 cups of sugar
juice of a lemon or and juice of 1 orange and the peel

Cook over medium heat until thickens, stirring regularly to keep from burning on the bottom – the juice of the lemon/orange  helps thickening the butter.  

Add the peel the last 15 minutes of cooking.  If peel is not available use 1 can of pineapple.  Bottle and process according to Ball Canning instructions.

Mrs. Buttons