frozen pear slices

9 years ago

The All New Ball Book of Canning and Preserving has two pie filling recipes for pears. One is for Pear and Sour Cherry Pie Filling and the other is Apple-Pear-Cranberry Pie Filling. Since cranberries weren't yet available in our little market, I prepared the apple and pear slices, measured them and froze them in freezer bags.

Since cranberries are now available here, I defrosted the fruit slices. The apples were fine but the pears went way beyond mush all the way over to liquefied. I tried draining them but lost half of the amount and what remained was barely more than pear juice. I made the recipe as directed but froze the results as the amounts were very skewed at that point and I was worried about the changes in texture and amounts messing up the final results.

The pears were very firm and beautiful when I started. Next year I will try to slice them larger. As I still have several bags in the freezer do you think it would be ok to make the recipe below even though the pears are pretty much liquefied? Is there anything I can do next year besides larger slices to prevent this? Do I need to freeze this year's cranberries and next year make with fresh pears instead? I am guessing using my current batch of frozen pears in pear bread or pear muffins would be equally disastrous. thanks for your help, sam

Apple-Pear-Cranberry Pie Filling

4 c. water

3/4 c. bottled lemon juice, divided

5 cups thinly sliced peeled apples

5 cups thinly sliced peeled pears

2 cups fresh or thawed cranberries

2 1/2 cups sugar

1 t. cinnamon

1/8 t. nutmeg

1. Combine water and 1/4 c lemon juice in a large bowl. Submerge apple and pear slices in lemon water; drain.

2. Combine fruit slices, cranberries, next 3 ingredients, and remaining 1/2 c. lemon juice in a 6 qt. stainless steel or enameled Dutch oven. Bring to a simmer over medium heat; cover and cook 10 minutes or until fruit relieases its juices, stirring occasionally.

3. Ladle hot fruit mixture into a hot jar, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Wipe Jar rim. Center lid on jar. Apply band, and adjust to fingertip-tight. Place jar in boiling-water canner. Repeat.

Process jars 30 minutes, adjusting for altitude.

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Comments (5)

digdirt2
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Pears really have to be frozen in syrup to hold any kind of quality. The cell structure on them is just too prone to total collapse otherwise. See

http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/freeze/pear.html

The other alternative is to just can the pears plain and then make the pie filling just before serving. You will almost always end up with better quality mixed recipes if you can each of the ingredients plain first. Canned apples, canned pears, and canned cranberries can them be turned into pie filling at any time later.

As for using what you have - the pie filling is going to be poor quality IMO if you use less than fresh pears. I'd turn it into Apple-Cranberry Pie filling by upping the amount of apples to cover the left out pears. Turn your frozen pears into pearsauce (like applesauce) or pear jam. Using it in baking could work if you first drain them as for jelly using multiple layers of cheesecloth ot a muslin jelly bag.

Dave
hawaiisam
Original Author
9 years ago
Thank you Dave. My previous preserving experience has been with tropical fruit so am still getting used to the mainland types of fruit growing around this house. Last year mistook tart plums for cherries and with this recipe I have learned that pears don't necessarily behave the same as apples. Still learning and nothing teaches like a bad experience. Prefer to ask questions here first of course but sometimes I don't know enough to know what I don't know. mahalo, sam
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digdirt2
9 years ago
but sometimes I don't know enough to know what I don't know.

We can all relate to that Sam. ;-)

Dave
annie1992
9 years ago
Yup, I feel just like that sometimes, Sam.

I agree with Dave about canning fruit separately. I made apple pie filling once, and then started just canning apple slices as they are so much more versatile than the "single use" pie filling.

That recipe looks good, so thanks for that. And I have cranberries in the freezer, and apples and pears are available locally cheaply and easily, and I have company coming next week!
hawaiisam
Original Author
9 years ago
In spite of the setbacks described above, I must admit this pie is pretty delicious. In case anyone wants to try it I am typing the baking directions from the book which I didn't include when typing the original recipe above. There is no indication of a topping so I used a crumb topping of 1/2 c. sugar, 3/4 c. flour and 1/3 c. butter.

Preheat oven to 400'. Drain 1/3 c. syrup from 1 jar of pie filling into a medium bowl. whisk in 2 T. cornstarch until smooth. Add remaining pie filling, gently stirring to blend. Pour into unbaked pie shell set on a baking sheet. (I topped with a crumb topping). Bake at 400 for 30 mins. Reduce to 350' and bake 25 more mins. until golden brown.

Will freeze some cranberries so next year I can try this again with fresh, not frozen, pears : ) sam