You can enjoy canned pears straight from the jar or in cobblers, pies or sauces for ice cream or pancakes. They can be canned in simple sugar syrup or you can add in some spices like vanilla, cinnamon and cloves for an extra kick in flavour. When you pick your pears, make sure they are ripe but firm and free of insects, bruises or cuts. The canned pears recipe below is for ~ 30 jars of 500 ml. 

Ingredients

• 1.25-1.5 kg sugar (depends how sweet you want the syrup and how sweet your pears are)
• 6 l water
• 13 kg medium ripe pears
• 1 vanilla bean 
• 4-6 cinnamon sticks 
• 1 Tbsp of cloves 

Equipment

• Jars & lids – lids should have a gum binder that seals them against the top of the jar
• 1 pot to make the sugar syrup
• 1 large pot to process/sanitize the filled jars in a boiling water bath
• Ladle for distributing the sugar syrup into jars

Directions

First, wash, peel and core the pears. Then, cut them into slices.  

Bring the water, sugar and spices to a boil and remove from heat. 

Wash the jars in soapy water and rinse them thoroughly. Allow them to drip-dry for 15-20 minutes and then place them in a pan (or right on the rack) in the oven set to 225F (100C) to sterilize the jars. Leave them there until your pears and sugar syrup are ready. Make sure the lids are clean and dry as well before using them. 

Carefully remove the jars from the oven. Place the pears into the hot sterilized canning jars. Then, pour the sugar syrup over and make sure the pears are covered with liquid. It’s better to pour half a ladle of syrup in each jar to allow the jar to reach almost the same temperature as the syrup. Then, fill all the jars leaving 1-1.5 cm headspace. This is very important as overfilling can result in a jar that doesn’t seal properly. 

Wipe the jars with a clean damp paper towel to remove any residue. Then, cover jars with lids and process them in a water bath.  For the water bath, you need a large pot with a rack or other spacer at the bottom so that jars do not rest directly on the bottom of the pot. Or if you want to keep it simple just add some newspapers or kitchen towels on the bottom of the pot (layer should be about 2/3 cm thick). If using newspapers make some deep cuts with a sharp knife to let the bubbles in the boiling water escape.

Add enough hot water to cover the jars by 2-3 cm. Then, bring the water to a gentle boil and process them for 15-20 minutes. 

Lastly, remove the jars from the water and cover them with a blanket until they are completely cooled. The purpose of the blanket is to allow the jars to cool slowly and help the lids seal properly. 

After the jars are completely cooled if you can press the center of the lid down, it did not seal.  If any jars have not sealed, you can either try processing them again in a water bath or just refrigerate them.