Jars of these home-canned brandied pears seem like extravagant Christmas gifts to the recipient, but are really quite economical to make.
It’s not quite a sugar-free recipe, as there is of course a great deal of sugar in the apple juice, but there’s no added sugar.
One of these pear halves is delicious with a dollop of fat-free Greek yoghurt on it.
This recipe is a Ball recipe — “Cinnamon Pears” — with the added idea of brandy extract.
The recipe
Jar size choices: Half-litre (1 US pint / 500 ml/ 16 oz) OR litre (US quart / 32 oz)
Processing method: Either water-bath or steam canning
Yield: 3 x litre (US quart) jars
Headspace: 2 cm (½ inch)
Processing time: Half-litre (pint) 20 minutes; litre (quart) 25 minutes.
Pears in Brandied Apple Juice
Ingredients
- 3 to 4 kg pears (6 to 9 lbs, 18 to 27 medium-sized)
- 1 litre apple juice (unsweetened. 4 cups / 32 oz)
- 6 tablespoons brandy
- brandy extract
- sticks cinnamon (about 5 to 10 cm / 2 to 4 inches long)
Instructions
- Wash pears. Cut in half lengthwise, core and peel. Place completed pear halves in a bowl of water with some lemon juice in it.
- Put a broad pan such as a Dutch oven with 5 to 10 cm (a few inches) of water in it on to start boiling.
- Put the apple juice in a saucepan and set on a burner to start heating.
- Poach the pears one layer at a time in the pot of boiling water, until they are hot throughout.
- Bring apple juice to full boil.
- Pack hot pears into half-litre (US pint) or litre (US quart) jars, core cavity downwards. It's okay to layer them in the jar.
- Leave 2 cm (½ inch) headspace.
- Tuck 1 cinnamon stick in each jar.
- In each jar, put ½ teaspoon brandy extract and (optional) 1 tablespoon brandy. (Double those quantities for litre (US quart) jars.
- Top up each jar with the hot apple juice, leaving the 2 cm (½ inch) headspace.
- Debubble, adjust headspace.
- Wipe jar rims.
- Put lids on.
- Process in a water bath or steam canner.
- Process half-litre (US pint) jars for 20 minutes; 1 litre (US quart) jars for 25 minutes.
- Best after at least a few weeks of jar time.
Nutrition
Reference information
How to water bath process.
How to steam can.
When water-bath canning or steam canning, you must adjust the processing time for your altitude.
More information about Sugar and Salt-Free Canning in general.
Recipe notes
- Don’t use Asian pears for this; they aren’t as acidic as European pears, and this recipe was probably developed for European pears.
- The apple juice quantity is approximate. You may need more or less.
- Instead of boiling the apple juice in a pot, you could zap it to boiling in a microwave.
- The expectation would be that the pears are going into the jars quite warm to hot — as opposed to room temperature or cold.
- Adding a tablespoon of actual brandy to the jar is really there just to provide “truth in advertising”, that there is some actual brandy in there! You could omit and just use the brandy extract.
Recipe source
Cinnamon Pears. In: Ball Blue Book. Muncie, Indiana: Healthmark LLC / Jarden Home Brands. Edition 37. 2014. Page 20
Modifications made:
- Added the brandy extract and brandy. On the same page, Ball has a recipe that calls for the packing liquid to be half brandy, but this gives the same effect without the added expense or calories.
Nutrition information
Serving size: ½ pear
(Nutrition based on assumption that a pear has absorbed 1 tbsp apple juice.)
Per ½ pear. 47 calories.
Weight Watchers PointsPlus®: Per pear half, 1 point.
* Nutrition info provided by https://caloriecount.about.com
* PointsPlus™ calculated by healthycanning.com. Not endorsed by Weight Watchers® International, Inc, which is the owner of the PointsPlus® registered trademark.
KB
The photos on a lot of the pear recipes show 250mL jars – can I use that size? I don’t have any half pints available and would prefer smaller portions. Please advise.
Healthy Canning
The jars in photos on this page are 500 ml jars. You are fine to use 250 ml / half-pint / 8 oz. size jars but you may not be able to fit much pear into them. Processing time would be the same as for pint jars: 20 minutes.
Samantha
Thanks for putting the weight watcher points!