Have you thought about using a recipe for wine jelly and swapping cider for the wine?

Once cooked, most of the alcohol will dissipate, no matter how ist made into a jelly, it needs to get boiled to set the pectin. Here, I make a nice clear apple jelly from cloudy apple cider. It seems to drop the sediment once boiled, and then it becomes clear apple jelly. I suppose you could add booze like an apple brandy if you wanted alcohol in it.

Hi, marie!

About two years ago, Victrola posted here his "recipe" for canning poached pears in wine. I have tried it and found them quite yummy. They make a great local hard cider here in Prince Edward County where I now live, and I was thinking of maybe trying something similar (maybe mixed pears and apples?) in the cider. Haven't done it yet, so can't speak to it. But here's the pear post and a few later discussion notes, in case you are inspired!

Zabby

Canning poached pears: a Victrola Adventure

Since Zabby recently suggested, tongue in cheek, that I've been hoarding my recipes, here is something I made today. Okay, so it's not quite a "recipe" but I don't think it lacks for details (other than measurements, but I don't measure things, so don't ask for 'em!).
Today at the market, my favourite vendors had some beautiful firm Flemish Beauty pears. This is one of my favourite variety of pears; I find they have a distinctive and pleasant vanilla note. I think there were about 8 pears.

Their firmness meant that, although not ready for eating, they were perfect for cooking. I peeled them with my old-fashioned apple peeler device, which worked (for most of the length of most of the pears) because they were firm and fat. After peeling, I cut them vertically into wedges of eighths, and dipped them in lemon juice to keep them from browning. (Perhaps that was superfluous, since they were to be poached in red wine anyway?)

I bought a litre of the Hungarian red wine Szeksardi Voros, which friends of mine, not knowing how to pronounce Hungarian, would call Sex and Divorce. As their English name implies, it's not a fancy wine, but it's fine (and cheap) for these purposes. I brought it to boil with some cloves, a cinnamon stick, a whole allspice, a few peppercorns, one whole cardamom, two slices of lemon, one slice of orange, sugar to taste, and the "pearings" (couldn't resist the pun... sorry... pear parings, in English). I boiled this until greatly reduced.

Then I fished out the solids, added the pears, boiled for about two minutes, stirring gingerly. Once again, I must praise the firmness of these pears. They didn't go to mushiness.

I removed them from the heat, fished out the pears, packed the slices into jars (500ml and 250ml jars... pints and half-pints, if you prefer), and covered with the reduced wine syrup. Whoops, I had reduced it too much, and there wasn't enough to cover all the pears, so I boiled up some sugar and water (1:4 ratio) very quickly to cover the pears. Silly me, I now realise, after the fact! I had meant to top them up with brandy before sealing, not more syrup!

After 20 minutes processing in BWB, I pulled out two beautiful 500ml jars and three lovely 250ml jars. And to my great pleasure, one of them did not seal, so I had no reason not to sample my wares: yum yum. I can't wait to have the occasion to bring these out for a dinner party or give them as host/hostess gifts.

One last time, let me emphasise the firmness of the pears! I couldn't imagine this turning out well with Bartlett pears (which I love for eating out of hand), for example.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by: MrsBartholomew 6a Canada (My Page) on Mon, Sep 20, 04 at 16:11

I love poached pears in red wine. I often make them for dessert when we have guests. Once I did them in white wine instead, just for a change - it was a Gewurtztraminer, and the seasonings were just a vanilla pod, a couple of star anise, and a cinnamon stick. Oh, it was beautiful. I serve one pear with about a half-cup of syrup and a dollop of whipped cream, and the syrup always gets eaten up! I've never tried canning them but maybe I should. It was the firmness I was afraid would be lost, but I didn't think of buying a harder pear. Good thinking.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

RE: Canning pears poached in red wine: a Victrola adventure
Posted by: lpinkmountain 5b/6a border PA (My Page) on Mon, Sep 20, 04 at 16:16

I mix the juice with maybe a little more sugar and some cornstarch and make a warm sauce to serve with the pears. I serve mine topped with canned vanilla pudding, warm sauce and some crumbled sugar cookies mixed with nuts. Or you can serve cold over cottage cheese or yogurt. Or plain. Or slice them, make the cornstarch based sauce, arrange the slices in the bottom of a greased nonstick 10 inch pan, pour the sauce over the pears and then pour cake batter over that. Turn it upside down to serve with a little more warmed sauce and some whipped cream. Or serve them with some sponge cake and hot chocolate sauce drizzled over them. Or mix them with other fruits for ambrosia. Or add the juice and chopped pears to jello. That's for starters. But definately save the juice to make a sauce. Mix it with cornstarch, say maybe 1-2 TBLSP, depends on how much juice you start with. You can always add a little more cornstarch, but it has to be mixed with COLD water first. Too much cornstarch gives the sauce a gluey taste.