Christmas Pears

I decided to do a few pints of Christmas Pears with the last of my fruit.   These make great gifts or just enjoy them yourself, straight from the jar.

You will need

Pears peeled, quartered and cored.  You can dice them if you prefer. 

Sugar

Water

1 lemon sliced and seeded

Red Hots Candy

Get your jars simmering in the canner and your lids and rings ready in hot water.

Make your syrup.  I like a heavier syrup for my Christmas Pears, but you can make it any way you like it.  When you get it boiling add your sliced lemon and boil until it is as thick as you want it.  Discard lemon.

Click here for charts for syrup

Once your syrup is done you can heat your pears directly in the syrup, but I put mine in a seperate pot, cover in water and heat them until they are heated all the way through.  .  Put enough candies in each jar to just about cover the bottom of the jar.  Fill jars with pears leaving 1/2 inch headspace.

Cover pears with hot syrup.  Remove Air Bubbles.

Wipe rims of jars with a clean, wet paper towel.  Put on lids and rings.  Tighten finger tight.  Process pints in a boiling water bath for 20 minutes and quarts for 25 minutes.

Remove lid and wait 5 minutes.  Place jars on counter to cool for 24 hours.

Label and Store.

Variations:

You can also do Candied Apples this way.

Another option is to not use the lemon in your syrup and put your red hot candies directly in the syrup while cooking.  Add your fruit directly to the syrup. Heat it through and then use a slotted spoon to ladle fruit into jars, cover in syrup and process.  I like doing the apples this way.