I initially posted my mum's vanilla pear jam recipe in 2017 as a pear preserve/jam because the option was to keep it chunky or to blend it smooth.
In time, I took the recipe to a whole new advanced flavor profile level by adding lime juice to it. It's a game changer!
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TL;DR
The original recipe didn't include lime juice. We have been adding lemon or lime juice for a few years now to our French jam, marmalade, jellies and preserves because citrus fruits contain natural pectin and that helps to preserve your jam.
The ingredients are all natural in this recipe and the preparation is as per our French family recipes. That means the jam jars are NOT canned as per US tradition.
Instead, the jars are turned upside down to create a vacuum, then they are stored on a shelf until they are opened. Once opened, the jar has to be refrigerated and double-dipping is not permitted!
Ingredient Notes
- Pears — Use only fresh pears. We normally get William pears (known as the Bartlett variety in the US) as that's my, my mother's, and Paul's preferred choice. But, you can use other pear varieties too, such as Anjou or the French Butter pear variety. Get pears that are ripe, but not spoiled. The pears should NOT be hard, they should be soft to the touch because when they ripen at the right time, they are most flavorful and naturally sweet.
- Sugar — Normal all-purpose sugar. Sugar helps in preserving your jam for months. I do not recommend switching this ingredient with other sweeteners.
- Lime — Freshly squeezed lime juice AND the squeezed out lime halves. The lime halves will be added to the jam during the cooking process so to release the natural pectin in the skin (which helps to set).
- Vanilla Bean — Get the best quality of vanilla beans, like those from Madagascar or Reunion Island. Look out for untreated pesticide-free on the label because you don't want these harmful substances in your food.
Remember to select a pear that softens when cooked. Avoid pear varieties that hold their shape after boiling.
You can jazz things up with brown sugar instead of regular sugar.
Get untreated (no pesticides) lime, you don't want poison in your jam. You can use lemon juice too, but I think lime juice rounds up all the flavors. It's the missing link!
You can also use vanilla bean paste if you prefer, but don't use vanilla extract, it's just not the same flavor experience when used in this jam recipe. Besides, you want the small black vanilla specks to add aesthetics to your homemade jam.
Process Overview
Step 1
Peel and cut out the core of your pears.
Cut your pears into chunks and weigh them.
Step 2
Slit open a vanilla bean lengthwise, scratch out the seeds.
Juice the Lime, but keep the lime halves!
Step 3
Place the pears in your jam pan with the sugar, vanilla bean, the squeezed out lime halves and the lime juice.
Mix it all well.
Step 4
Take the pot with the jam ingredients to the heat and bring to a rolling boil while stirring occasionally.
Step 5
Keep on the heat so that the jam can reduce over time and the pears cooked and infused with the vanilla lime flavors.
Step 6
When the pears appear darker, somewhat shiny and a bit translucent, after about 30–40 minutes or so simmering down, take out the vanilla bean and lime halves.
Blend them to your preferred consistency with a hand blender.
Step 7
Test if your jam is set, the thermometer setting temperature is 220 Fahrenheit/ 105 Celsius, or test by pouring hot jam on a cold plate to see if it's running.
Step 8
Pour hot jam up to the rim into clean sterilized jam jars. Close jam jars tight with lids.
Store or enjoy straightaway!
📖 Recipe
Vanilla Lime Pear Jam Recipe
Ingredients
- 2.2 Pounds Pears I use Williams (Bartlett) variety
- 1 Vanilla Bean
- 1 Lime
- 3 ½ cups Sugar
Instructions
- Peel, core, quarter and cut the pears into chunks.2.2 Pounds Pears
- Weigh your fruits.
- Slit open your vanilla bean. Cut your lime into two.1 Vanilla Bean, 1 Lime
- Place the pear chunks into a large jam cooking pot. Add to that the sugar, vanilla bean, squeezed out lime juice and 3 lime halves.3 ½ cups Sugar
- Keep the pot with the fruits on the stove over a medium-high heat setting. Bring to a rolling boil.
- Then take down the heat and continue to simmer over a medium heat setting for about 30-40 or so minutes. Stir occasionally.
- Keep cooking pear preserves until it has visibly reduced, changed to a darker color and appears glossy translucent.
- Pick out and discard the vanilla bean and two lime halves.
- Blend the jam to your desired consistency. If you keep it chunky it's a preserve, if you want to smooth, it's a jam.
- Test if the jam is set with a candy thermometer. The setting temperature is 210° Fahrenheit or 105° Celsius. Or drop some of the preserve on an ice-cold plate or spoon and if it's not running, it is set. If it runs, keep the jam for some more time to cook on low heat and repeat the test until you have the correct consistency. Keep in mind that jam will always appear liquid when cooking hot.
- Pour hot jam into clean sterilized jars and fill up to the rim.
- Close the jar well with the lid, clean if you made a mess and turn upside down to create a vacuum.
- Allow the jam to cool down to room temperature, turn it back up, label and store in a cool and dry place or use straightaway.
Equipment
- Jam Pan (copper) or large stainless steel pan
- Silicone Spatula To help you scrape out all the jam from the pan
- 4 8 oz Canning Jars (8oz = about 230 ml)
- Wide Mouth Funnel Optional, makes it easier to pour jam into jars.
- Wettex Absorbent Sponge To clean jars if you made a mess.
Nutrition
Essential Jam Making Know-How
Only use healthy fruit pieces, never decaying fruit pieces. Cut spoiled fruit pieces away as they can reduce the shelf life of your jam.
You can choose to leave the pears to macerate with the sugar and vanilla bean overnight. That means you prepare, clean and cut, your pears and combine them with the sugar, slit open vanilla bean and lime juice in your jam pan overnight. The next morning, you take it all to the heat to cook down your jam. Macerating helps to release quality fruit flavors.
Don't reduce the sugar quantity because the sugar helps in preserving the jam and, besides, you will only eat a teaspoon of jam at a time with bread or in yogurt. Nonetheless, if you prepare a small batch of pear preserves, and you intend to eat it soon, you can reduce the sugar in the recipe.
In France, we use a large copper jam pan to cook our jams. Copper is a better heat transmitter, and the jams turn out better cooked in it. Alternatively, we also use large stainless-steel pots.
Bring it initially to a rolling boil and to reduce to a simmer so that you can control better the cooking process.
The fruits are done when they are cooked and appear shiny, glossy and almost translucent. That's a sign that your jam is ready, and then you can take out the vanilla bean and blend the jam to test the setting afterward.
A hot jam will always appear more liquid. Its true consistency only shows when it cools down.
Test the setting by using a candy thermometer. The setting temperature is 220 Fahrenheit/ 105 Celsius. I use the ice-cold testing technique, where a drop of hot jam is placed on the ice-cold plate, cooling it down instantly to reveal the true consistency. Moving around the plate, the jam either runs or doesn't, and if it's the latter, it's set.
A jam that is not set is easier to fix because you can just leave it further to cook down until it's done and set. A jam that cooked too much will get hard when cooled and can't be fixed that well.
If your jam was cooked too much and hardened when cooled, take it back to the heat with a small quantity of water mixed in and briefly cook it for a few minutes. Put it back into clean jars and refrigerate. This jam won't hold that long at room temperature because you had to add water to fix the jam, but at least you can still enjoy it.
Use only clean sterilized jars and lids. Scrub them well with soap water and sterilize jars + lids in a hot water bath or in your dishwasher at a higher temperature.
You can add a few drops of a distilled clear consumable spirit to your inner lids to kill all remaining germs before closing the jar with the lid.
Placing the tightly closed jam jar upside down, right after filling it with jam, is a technique to create a vacuum. This in turn prolongs the shelf-life of the jam. Turn it back up once the jam is lukewarm so that no air bubbles form at the bottom of the jar.
While we do not water batch can our jam jars in France (we only do it for canned sugar syrup fruits and the like), you are still free to do that. I have put together a general post with water bath canning instructions.
Storing
Once you filled up your jar with jam, close it tight with a lid, clean the jar with a sponge and turn it upside down.
Wait for the jam to cool and when it is at room temperature, turn it back up so that no air bubbles get trapped at the bottom of the jar.
Then store your pear jam jars on a shelf, away from direct sunlight, heat, and humidity. They are good for 10–12 months unopened (having followed all cleanliness precautions).
Once you open your jar, store them in your fridge.
Never double dip and always use clean spoons when dipping into your jam to avoid mold growth.
Ideas to Use Your Pear Jam
Generally speaking, we primarily use jams as bread spreads in Europe. Baguette, whole wheat bread slices, Brioche, Kaiser Semmel buns, you name it. This is essentially our breakfast.
Then, we also use jams as a pastry or cake filling. Think puff pastry cream cheese pockets, Donut fillings, or a cake can have a layer of jam too (which is a Torte glazing technique from the Austrian national cuisine).
At home, people add a teaspoon or two to their plain yogurts to flavor them instead of adding sugar. I recommend making French yogurt at home and adding this pear jam to it, it's a game changer!
I, personally, love my pear like vanilla jam mixed into freshly cooked plain porridge. If you feel adventurous, try a Scandinavian rice porridge with this fruity jam.
More Fall/Winter Preserves
This jam sounds delicious and looks amazing, thank you for sharing your recipe! For greater longevity, can I process the jars in a traditional hot water bath?
Hi Tracy, yes you can process them in a traditional hot water bath to add another layer of food safety and longevity.
I made this & whilst the consistency was perfect it just tasted of sugar! I had to add loads of cooking apples & lemon juice for it to be edible.
I'm sorry that yours didn't turn out properly, sounds like you used bad pears. Using quality flavorful pears is a requirement to have a nice fruity preserve. Fruits are after all the main ingredient in a jam. You didn't mention the vanilla, so it sounds like you made up your own recipe to a certain degree. The sugar helps in preserving the jam and is the required right amount in this recipe, if used the right way as per the recipe, your preserve won't taste just sugar.
Sounds wonderful but how to convert recipe to use cups rather than pounds? Have pears to work with!!!
Sorry Sandra, but for jams, jellies, chutneys, and marmalades I have a weigh-only policy. It's important to be exact when working with the fruit and sugar ratio when prepping preserves. Please weigh your ingredients for preserves, cups are not exact.
I made this recipe and it turned out beautifully. I love brandy with pears so I added an eighth of a cup of brandy and the preserves had a lovely rich depth of flavor.
Hi Gayle, that's a brilliant idea! I would most definitely make my next batch with brandy too 😀
So looking forward to making this. Just wondering how many pints it makes so I can pre sterilize the right number of jars. Thanks!
Hi Cynthia, please keep about 2-3 jars ready to use with this recipe.
But what size canning jars? Half pint 8 oz? Pint 16oz?
Hi Carey, you will need about 4 half pint jars.
I can’t wait to try this! I am new to canning and making jams. Could I cut this recipe in 1/2 or even 1/4 to try?
Hi Joy, yes you can prepare a smaller batch. Just cut the quantities in half or quarter. The ratio will be the same.
Don’t know what I did wrong. I followed the instr. and my jam is the consistency of hard silicone. I can barely pull the knife out of jar!
Hi Heather, I think you overcooked the Jam. Don't worry, we have all been there. Did you try the setting test with a cold plate or cold spoon? A thermometer can be useful as well to reach the perfect setting temperature.
QUICK FIX for hard overcooked jam: Take your jam back to the pot add a small quantity of boiling water to it., mix and watch your jam getting soft again. Heat it up to get rid of germs. Take it back the clean sterilized jars as described in the recipe. Try to use your jam within a few months and keep it stored in the fridge because we have added water to it afterward.
When the jam is still hot, it appears super thin, but once it cools you can see that it's actually ready and set. That's when the cold plate test is required because you drop hot jam on the ice cold plate and that reduces the temperature of the jam instantly.
I hope your pear jam tastes great at least 🙂
Taking ages to reach 105 c using an open jam pan, Wondering if I should mash it and then continue to bring it up to temp?
Smells good!
Yeah, you can mash it too and then continue to bring it up to the temp. Did you use a copper open jam pan (because copper can cook the jam more evenly, hence the temperature increases more easily too)? My mum has a copper pan, I use stainless steel and at times I just tend to increase the heat a bit to speed up the process. Even if it takes it's time it's ok you know. My mum has a wood oven and sometimes the wood pieces aren't the best and the cooking time is prolonged to two hours. The result is the same anyhow. 🙂 Enjoy your pear jam!
I learned something from your article that I've never thought about before. . I am a big apple person and bake with them quite often. I didn't realize that just like apples, pears have varieties that are best suited for baking. Makes perfect sense though. I loved your idea of putting the pear preserves in yogurt, that sounds absolutely delicious !
This looks so good! I love pears but never use them enough during the short fall pear season. What a good way to help the flavor last all winter long.
The vanilla sounds so good!
This looks delicious! And much better than any store-bought version. My mom would love this recipe
I was just thinking the other day of making some pear butter or preserves, now that I've stumbled upon your recipe, I must!
I love the idea of adding vanilla to pear preserves! Also, at first glance I thought the title of this recipe said "Pearl Jam," and I was wondering what a band had to do with a recipe. 🙂
I haven't made jam in so long and I'm desperate to try this, hopefully with some free time coming up in December!
This is perfect, I have a pear tree and regularly have too many pears, if that's even possible. Saving for next Summer!
This sounds amazing! Absolutely love pears around this time of year. Definitely will need to try this recipe!
These pear preserves look delicious! We have a pear tree and I never know what to do with all of the excess fruit and for some reason, I have never thought of making jam! What a great idea! I've printed out your recipe and will try it next spring when I have loads of pears!
I've never made jam before! It doesn't look super hard though, and I LOOOOVE pears!
I love preserves. I make my own bread and having a simple piece of toast with pb and this kind of fruit sweetness is so so wonderful. Thanks for sharing.
I LOVE this recipe. I'm so excited pears are in season because I need to make this and eat this ASAP 🙂
This sounds a fab preserve to make for gifting, simple, but totally yummy. Loving the pear and vanilla combination.
OMG Helene that sounds DIVINE!!! I'm pinning this and will keep my fingers tightly crossed that by having taken that much action, a jar of it will magically appear in my fridge 😀
Jane x
My mom is a master of homemade jams and preserves but I never really make them. So whenever I see someone else's homemade fruit preserves my cravings (and longings for home) go through the roof!
Lately, I have been visiting a lot of different homestyle breakfast joints that have amazing homemade jams. I have been meaning to try to buy some but now that I found this recipe, I think I'm going to make it instead! 🙂 I love how its not the traditional berries jam too! Thank you for this! 🙂
Pear and vanilla is such a fantastic combination! Love that it only has three ingredients too. A must try!
I love the idea of pear and vanilla but vanilla bean is hard for me to find. Can I substitute vanilla extract?
Yes you can substitute with a few drops of vanilla extract. 🙂
Do you need to cool the jam/preserves before you put them in the jars and put the jar upside down?
Hi Paige,
No you don't need to let the jam cool. Just pour the hot jam into the jars and seal well as explained in the recipe instructions.
I miss a lot of the fruit I used to get in Goa, but I do get a good variety of pears. I also love making my own jam, so I must try this next.
This looks awesome and I love that you made this without using any pectin.
The fruit preserve looks awesome, I have made something similar with apples, would love to try this soon..
Every summer my mom and I get together and make a huge batch of preserves. I can't wait to share this recipe with her and possibly arrange a fall fruit preserve-making session!
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You sure make a beautiful jar of jam Helene! Love the addition of the vanilla bean in the pear jam! Need to find some local pears. I'd love to taste this. Thanks and welcome back!
I'd have to call your preserves both elegant and gourmet! Sounds and looks delicious.
Oh my gosh I love this! I first discovered pear preserves in Germany when we were staying with a host family. They had a few varieties, one with added ginger which I've been craving ever since! I can't wait to try this, then experiment with ginger too. Thanks so much for sharing!
Three ingredients and no pectin, I will be trying this recipe for sure. I do love no fuss and easy. Love how the vanilla bean adds that depth of colour, it would add a nice depth of flavour too.
This is absolutely gorgeous and I love the combination of pear and vanilla - Wowza!