Belgian pear syrup

A delicious syrup that can be eaten on bread and used in a multitude of recipes.

Ingredients

7 pears (quality doesn't matter, you can argue that overripe pears are better because they have more suggar content)
3 apples
a small handfull of dates, raisins, dried appricots or prunes (optional, you can experiment with these they can bring some nice flavors)
150 grams sugar
1 glass of water
find sieve or cheese cloth
glass jar

Wash the outside of the fruit with water and cut it in 8 medium sized pieces, you don't have to core or deseed the fruit everything can go in the pot.
Place the fruit in a large pan with a thick bottom so you get even heat, i suggest you place the pears on the bottom since they don't burn as fast, add the glass of water.
If you are using them add the dried fruits at this point.
Put the heat as low as you can get it and let it all slowly stew for 3 hours, stiring every now and then.
At this point you can boil your glass jars to sterilize them, place them on a clean, dry towel.
When the fruit is done cooking for 3 hours grab your sieve or cleese cloth and place it over a bowl, run your fruit through it until you have extracted all the clear liquid, you can discard the pulp.
Quickly rins the pot with water so its clean and add the fruit liquid back, put back on the stove.
Add the sugar, add a bit less sugar if you also used dried fruits.
Cook for another 2 hours, after that stir every so often, Be careful with the stirring if you stir too often it might caramelize too quickly.
After two to two and a halve hours your syrup should be nearly done
At this point its up to you on how thick you want your syrup to be, a good way to test the viscosity is to drop a little bit on a cold plate or your countertop to see how it is at room temperature.
when you are happy with the viscosity poor the syrup into your sterilized jars and immeadiatly seal them.

;tags: syrup fruit belgian