I would cold pack the pears. The Ball Blue only list directions for Hot pack. It has direction for cold or hot pack peaches, plums and prunes. I see no difference. I think they just forgot. I've always cold packed pears. The times are the same for peaches and plums, cold or hot packed. 20 minutes for pints and 25 for quarts. I always do them a bit longer. Also, I always use a light syrup, 5-1/2 water to 1-1/4 sugar.

Shirley

The note in "So Easy to Preserve" is that hot pack produces the best quality for pears but that they can be cold-packed as per peaches.

Carol

I prefer a raw pack, not a hot pack. The reason for the raw pack is because it sort of "preshrinks" the food, making it float less after canning. When I hot pack my fruit, I think it gets too soft. Either way is fine.

The reason for the raw pack is because it sort of "preshrinks" the food, making it float less after canning.

Linda Lou, I know what you meant but I think you have that backwards. Hot pack "preshrinks" - not cold or raw pack.

I agree, hot pack "preshrinks" the fruit and there is less float. Nonetheless, I cold pack the pears, they are too fragile and tend to mush up if done hot.

Annie

With the hot pack, it makes sense that the fruit would shrink and more could be place in the jar. More pears less liquid and less float. I still prefer the cold pack.

Boy, I have not been doing well. For some reason, my glucose levels have been like a roller coaster. I really am not feeling well. Sorry, I mixed it up again. Yes, hotpacking preshrinks. My pears turned out mushy when I did them that way, so never again. I like my fruit more firm.

Linda Lou, I was ready to blame it on canning season and your trying to do too many things.

I hope your levels become more stable soon and you feel a LOT better.

Annie

Thank you! You all told me exactly what I wanted to hear!
One last question: How long do I process the cold pack? The MSU extension site only shows hot pack times.
Thanks again,
Jessica

It's easy to miss things on these threads. I mentioned same as for peaches but should have included times: for cold pack it's 25 minutes pints and 30 minutes quarts.

Carol

Um, er, I can't find 'directions' for cold pack pears the way I want to make them - with some ratio of a muscat or sweet wine. I want to add cinnamon sticks, vanilla beans, cardamom, the usual suspects. I'll be doing pints.

Help please?

Jessy, this one was a challenge. Most of the recipes "out there" are either pears with red wine, sweet pickled pears with sugar, spices and some admixture of vinegar or pears with various liqueurs like Amaretto.

I'm assuming you want to can the pears in what is essentially a poaching liquid. Actually, there's no reason why you can't follow the cold-packing directions provided and do that anyway. As pears are an acid fruit, you can process them with a sugar syrup, an amended sugar syrup (with lemon, liqueur, spices, whatever) or even just plain water if you want. The safety is not going to be affected. So if you have a poaching liquid you already use, go ahead.

Most of the recipes for that sort of thing recommend slightly underripe pears (for the obvious reasons); many call for the hard winter pears, which is why red wine so often appears in the recipe. They have a natural affinity.

Here's the one recipe I found which comes reasonably close; you could work from that and see what you come up with. I'd love to hear the results.

From "Perfect Preserves" by Hilaire Walden

Mulled Pears

3 lb. small, slightly underripe pear pieces
Whole cloves
3-inch cinnamon stick, broken
2 blades of mace
Peel of 1 lemon, cut ito strips
1 cup plus 2 T. sugar
about 3/4 bottle red wine (a soft, fruity wine such as a Chinon, a Beaujolais, or a Merlot-based, not a robust wine such as cabernet sauvignon-type)

1. Peel the pears, leaving stems intact. Stud each pear with a clove, then divide among 3 sterilized pint jars. Distribute remaining spices evenly. (I don't understand the contradiction here between "Pear pieces" in the ingredient list and whole pears in the instructions. So I guess you do what you want, LOL.)

2. Gently heat sugar in wine until it has dissolved, then heat mixture until wine is hot but not boiling.

3. Pour wine over pears to within 1/2" of top. Remove air bubbles. Clean rims, apply lids and process boiling water bath 25 minutes. (30 minutes for quarts.)

I hope this helps. Let us know how things turn out.

(I wonder how 50% light honey would work in this?)

Carol

Jessy, sign me up for some of that however it comes out. LOL

-Robin

Thanks Carol and Robin! (Robin you're making me change the contents of that box returning your jars - LOL!)

I made

One bottle 375 ml Muscat from Trader Joes
2 cups water
1 cup sugar

I haven't opened them yet!

Question for next time: since raw pack shrinks so much, can I really pack the jars tight with fruit next time? (shut up Annie)

Jessica, I am NOT going to say a darned thing, I'm just going to sit here and smirk.

Hey, you posted a picture at Cooking, why didn't you post it here?

Annie

Annie, I did - its the clickable link in my text, above. You can wipe that smirk off your face now. (yeah, like that will happen hee hee)

Those look really pretty. And yes, you can pack them tight.

Carol

Regarding pears in white wine --- I did some two years ago, half in red wine and half in white, according to a "recipe" suggested by Victrola (a gentleman in Montreal who was posting here regularly then --- apparently he's gotten very busy with athletic pursuits recently) and expanded on by Mrs. Bartholomew (a Toronto forum member who had time to post then before she had her baby).

Mrs. B. suggested a Gewurtztraminer with vanilla, cinnamon, and star anise. I used a Vidal for my white wine, and not having any star anise I think I used cinnamon, vanilla, and a few allspice berries. The red I spiced much as Victrola suggests.

Both came out just delicious. It's not a cold pack as described here (though the key is that you can cook the WINE etc. for a lot longer FIRST till it thickens, then just heat the pears in it and cook them briefly); like Victrola suggested, I used a firm, Flemish Beauty pear.

I don't know if there's any reason you could not pack the pears cold and pour hot syrup over them, though, is there?

Anyway, sounds like you did something wonderful already. But I thought I'd post this because it's such fun to read Victrola's "recipes."

One thing I noticed was that I was surprised at how mildly spiced the syrup & pears were when I opened the jars. The flavour was definitely less than when it was first made (I remember drinking the leftover wine syrup --- it had been a bad day, LOL --- and it was much spicier than the eventual pears were.) So if I did them again I would go even heavier on the spices without fear of overdoing it.

Z

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.

Zabby, it is good to read a Victrola recipe. I miss his posts.

Annie, do you have the recipe I posted a while back for pear sorbet? I was thinking the poaching liquid in that would be super yummy in canned pears. Note to self, whenever you post a recipe save a copy on your own computer.

Jessy, no reason to change, just add to, LOL

-Robin

Oh wow look what I've missed from Victrola.

I bought another nine pounds of pears today, I guess I have to open one of the jars I made yesterday to adjust seasonings. I just bought a fresh new jar of cardamom, too!

I'm thinking, although more troublesome, that the hot packed would result in a more intensely-spiced flavor in the pears themselves.

I saw one recipe that used pear nectar as part of the poaching liquid along with the white wine and spices - that seemed like a good idea. Heck, you could always follow zabby's advice and use some of the syrup for a Saturday night beverage.

How about this recipe which uses both red and white wine? It doesn't mention canning, but that's easy enough to do. What a lovely gift - one red jar and one white. The mascarpone ice cream can be found via the link.

Poached Pears in Red and White Wine

A deliciously indulgent dessert from Giorgio Locatelli - pears poached in white and red wine with Mascarpone ice cream

Servings: 4-6
Level of difficulty: Easy
Preparation Time: 25 minutes, plus cooling
Cooking Time: 5 minutes

Ingredients
8 Pears, halved, peeled and cored
1 lemon, juice of
1 bottle Italian white wine, such as Orvieto
1 bottle Italian red wine, such as Barolo
1/2 cinnamon stick
6 star anise pods
200g Sugar
600ml water
40g Honey
1 vanilla pod, halved

Mascarpone Ice Cream, to serve

Method
1. Sprinkle the prepared pears with the lemon juice to prevent them from going brown.

2. Pour the white and red wines into two separate saucepans. Divide the remaining ingredients equally between each pan.

3. Put eight pear halves into each pan. Bring to the boil, then simmer briskly for15 minutes. Leave the pears to cool down in their cooking liquid, preferably overnight.

4. Drain the pears and set aside. Boil the two syrups separately until reduced. Pour into bowl and leave to cool.

5. When the syrups are cool, place some of each colour pear on serving plates and spoon the syrups over the top. Serve with a scoop of Mascarpone Ice Cream.

Carol

Here is a link that might be useful: Poached Pears with Mascarpone Ice Cream

Dang it, Robin, I know I saved it. It's somewhere. I can't find it, though, maybe it's on that CD of recipes that I burned....

Annie

Hmm. I still have a few jars of these, so I hadn't thought to make more this fall, but now I'm thinking of doing so just so I can drink the leftover liquid again. MAN, that was good. Sweetened mulled wine infused with pears....

Zabby the debauched