Canned Halved Pears

Home canned pears with whipped cream and a cherry or cinnamon on top is a lovely dessert option. Nothing is quite as satisfying as putting up your own home canned halved pears. It’s easy to put up several quarts in an afternoon. Just follow the directions below and you’ll have enough to store away in your pantry soon.

Ingredients:

• 17 pounds of pears
• 10 and 1/2 cups of water
• 1 and 1/4 cup sugar
• ascorbic acid
• a jar funnel
• a jar lifter
• a large pot for boiling cans and canning pears
• a smaller pot for making the very light syrup and cooking the pears
• a slotted spoon
• a damp rag with vinegar
• Ball or Kerr canning jars
• canning lids and rings

Directions:

1. Choose ripe mature pears. Wash and peel the pears.
2. Cut the pears lengthwise and half and remove the core. You can use a melon baller or a metal measuring spoon to core the pears.
3. Keep all peeled and cored pears in an ascorbic acid solution. This can be made with a 500-milligram vitamin C tablet crushed and dissolved in one gallon of water. Additionally, using the pure powdered form, one teaspoon per gallon of water. There are also commercially prepared mixes that are seasonally available at some canners markets.
4. Prepare a very light syrup by heating the 10 1/2 cups of water and 1 1/2 cups of sugar together bring to a simmer. Add the pear halves to the boiling light syrup for approximately 5 minutes until just barely cooked.
5. With a slotted spoon remove the hot pears from the very light syrup and place inside of the canning jars using a jar funnel leaving 1/2 inch of headspace in the jar.
6. Once all jars have been filled with halved pears, cover the hot pears with the very light syrup while it’s still hot using the jar funnel. Make sure to leave 1/2 inch of headspace within the jar.
7. Wipe the rims of all jars with a cloth dampened with vinegar.
8. Cover all jars with lids and rings. Adjust rings so that they are “finger tight” which means just barely tight.
9. Process the pears in a rapidly boiling pot of water by placing the covered jars in the pot with jar lifters. Ensure that the pot isn’t too full to place all jars inside with water. The water should cover the tops of the jars buy a half an inch to an inch.

Tips:

• If you do not have a proper canning pot with a can lifter, you can place a kitchen towel on the bottom of the pot to keep jars from shaking into one another. Also, a jar lifter can be used to remove the jars from the pot when they are finished.
• Pears should always be hot packed.
• Pears should always be boiling water bath as pressure canned pears tend to turn pink after being processed.
• Any pears that have been processed and did not seal correctly, can be reprocessed within 24 hours with a new lid. Reprocessed pears may turn pink.
• Pears can be created with light syrup, medium syrup, apple juice, white grape juice, and water if it is acidic enough.
• For Asian pears, the above recipe must be modified. After placing the pears that have been cooked inside of your jars, add one teaspoon of lemon juice for each pint of pears for one tablespoon for a quart of pears. Add the syrup and process as usual.