Behold the Flemish Beauty.

Round these parts we call her Beauté Flamande. She’s an extremely hardy type of pear, which makes her one of the few pears that grows happily in Quebec. I’ve been buying them all fall at the market and recently decided to transform a few  into butter.

Here’s what I did: I looked over this recipe for spiced up pear butter from the blog Simply Recipes and this recipe for caramel pear butter (brown sugar provides the caramel-ness) from epicurious and then I went and did my own thang.

I call it spiced caramel pear butter. The star anise is somehow both pronounced and subtle and some bites provide a surprise hit of crystallized ginger. It’s a yummy, somewhat sophisticated fall-winter toast topper that would pair real nice with some high-quality vanilla bean ice cream.

Spiced caramel pear butter

4 lbs pears

1/4 cup unfiltered apple juice

1 lemon, juiced

2 cups brown sugar

1 tsp minced crystallized ginger

1 star anise

1/4 tsp cardamom

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp cinnamon

OK, pour the lemon and apple juices into a heavy pot. Peel pears and chop, adding them to the juice as you go to prevent them from turning brown. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently for about 20 minutes or until the pears soften and release their juices.

Remove from heat and put the mixture through a food mill. Add sugar and spices and cook over medium heat for another 30-45 minutes, or until it reduces to a nice, thick, buttery consistency. Pour into hot, clean jars and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. There you have it.