How do I make and can apple butter or another fruit butter?

Fruit butter is fruit cooked soft, pressed smooth through a food mill or sieve, then cooked slowly with sugar and spice until a spoonful stays mounded without a ring of liquid weeping around it. Fill hot jars with 1/4 inch headspace and process them in a boiling water canner for the time that comes with your recipe, adjusted for your elevation. Apple, pear, peach, plum, apricot, grape and quince make good canned butters from tested recipes. Pumpkin, winter squash and other low-acid "butters" have no tested home canning process at all. This page gives the method, the doneness tests and the processing times by source.

Fruits that make butter, and fruits that don't

The federal fruit butter standard names eight fruits: apple, apricot, grape, peach, pear, plum, prune and quince, alone or in combinations of two to five [1]. Those are also the fruits home canning recipes are written for. They are acidic enough for a boiling water canner and they cook down to a smooth, thick paste.

Pumpkin butter is the one people most often try to can, and the reasons it fails are specific: pumpkin is low-acid, and its acidity and thickness vary too much from batch to batch for anyone to set a safe time [2]. If you want it, make it and freeze it. Pumpkin butter and other low-acid spreads has the full explanation and what to do instead.

Making apple butter

This is the apple butter University of Tennessee Extension prints (rev. October 2020), adapted from the USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning (Agriculture Information Bulletin No. 539, revised 2015) with credit to NCHFP [3]. The sheet suggests Jonathan, Winesap, Stayman, Golden Delicious, McIntosh or other tasty varieties [3]. It makes about 8 to 9 pints.

Ingredients

• 8 pounds apples
• 2 cups apple cider
• 2 cups vinegar
• 2 1/4 cups white sugar
• 2 1/4 cups packed brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon ground cloves

Steps

1. Sterilize half-pint and pint jars by boiling them in a pan of water for 10 minutes, and prepare lids by the manufacturer's directions [3]. The 5 minute time below depends on that step (see the processing section).
2. Wash the apples, remove stems, then quarter and core them [3].
3. Cook the apples slowly in the cider and vinegar until soft [3].
4. Press the fruit through a colander, food mill or strainer [3]. A food mill gives the smoothest butter.
5. Cook the pulp with the sugars and spices, stirring frequently, until it passes the doneness test below [3].
6. Fill hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust the headspace if needed, wipe the rims with a damp paper towel and put on two-piece lids [3].
7. Process in a boiling water canner for the time in the table below, then cool the jars undisturbed for 12 to 24 hours and check the seals [3].

Ball publishes a different apple butter (4 pounds apples, 2 cups water, 4 cups sugar, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon cloves, 1/4 cup bottled lemon juice; about 6 half-pints), reproduced by UC Master Food Preservers of Sacramento County [4]. It uses the same mound-on-a-spoon doneness test and 1/4 inch headspace, with its own processing time. Pick one recipe and keep its time.

Pear butter

So Easy to Preserve has a pear butter made from 2 quarts pear pulp (about 20 medium, fully ripe pears), 4 cups sugar, 1 teaspoon grated orange rind, 1/2 cup orange juice and 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg. The pears are quartered, cored, cooked soft and pressed through a sieve or food mill to make the pulp; the sugar and flavorings go in and it cooks until thick, about 15 minutes, then fills hot jars with 1/4 inch headspace. The UC reproduction credits So Easy to Preserve (2014), processes it 5 minutes in a boiling water or atmospheric steam canner and yields about 4 half-pints [4]. More on pears, including why Asian pears are different, is on pear jam and preserves.

Two doneness tests for a thick butter

Butters have no gel point to hit with a thermometer. You are cooking off water until the texture holds, and the tests are about whether liquid separates.

The spoon test. Take a spoonful of hot butter and hold it away from the steam for 2 minutes. It is done if the butter stays mounded on the spoon [3]. Ball's recipe uses the same idea, cooking until the mixture is "thick enough to mound on a spoon" [4].

The plate test. Spoon a little onto a plate. When no rim of liquid separates around the edge, it is ready to can [3]. A thin watery ring means keep cooking.

What you are watching for in the pan:

• Early on, the pulp splashes and runs flat when stirred.
• Close to done, a spoon dragged across the bottom leaves a trail that closes slowly, and the color has darkened noticeably.
• Too far, the butter turns very dark, sticks and scorches, and tastes bitter.

Thick butters spit violently as they bubble. Use a deep, heavy pan, keep the heat low once the pulp thickens, stir along the bottom with a long-handled spoon, and wear an oven mitt on the stirring hand. Slow reduction is the reason butters take hours; Ball's salted caramel pear butter quotes 3 to 4 hours of cooking [4].

Headspace and processing times by source

Leave 1/4 inch headspace for fruit butters, the same as for jam and jelly [3][4]. Then use the processing time that belongs to your recipe.

Three things to know about this table:

1. A 5 minute time needs sterilized jars. NCHFP says jars processed for less than 10 minutes must be sterilized first, and jars that were not sterilized need a full 10 minute process plus the altitude adjustment [5]. The full sterilized and unsterilized charts, and why they cannot be mixed, are on how long to process jam.
2. The Ball and USDA times are not interchangeable. The Ball recipe is a different formula with a different time. Do not put the Ball time on the USDA recipe or USDA's altitude bands on the Ball time.
3. The pear butter reproduction gives only the low-elevation time. If you live above 1,000 feet, use the altitude adjustment printed with the recipe in So Easy to Preserve itself.

In Boise, at about 2,700 feet, the USDA apple butter in pints gets 10 minutes in sterilized jars, or 15 minutes in jars that were only washed and kept hot, following the unsterilized-jar row on how long to process jam.

Butters are dense, and heat moves slowly through them. That is why these recipes are written for half-pints and pints (quarts only for the USDA apple butter) and why you should not put a butter into a larger jar than its recipe lists.

Spices, sugar and other changes

Fruit butters are forgiving about flavor. Shifting the blend of dried ground spices (more cinnamon, less clove, a little ginger or cardamom) while keeping the total near what the recipe lists is a flavor choice; dried spice is a small, dry addition that leaves the fruit, acid and sugar as tested. Changing the fruit, the vinegar or lemon juice, or the size of the jar does, because those are the parts of the recipe that set its acidity and heat penetration.

On sugar: the tested recipes above are full-sugar recipes, and none of their sources gives a range you may cut to. If you want a less sweet butter, find a tested reduced-sugar recipe rather than trimming one of these; a butter with its sugar cut by eye is an untested product and belongs in the refrigerator or freezer. For sellers, the federal standard requires at least 5 parts fruit to 2 parts sweetener and at least 43 percent soluble solids in the finished butter [1][6]. The arithmetic is on how much fruit the law requires in jam.

Slow cookers and electric multicookers are popular for butters. None of the tested recipes above uses one, and their temperatures and evaporation rates vary from model to model. The tested method is a pan on the stove; a butter made another way is outside what these sources tested.

Storing fruit butter

Sealed jars of fruit butter store like jam: cool, dark and dry, best within about a year, and refrigerated once opened. The details are on storing jam and how long it keeps. If a jar fails to seal, refrigerate it and use it; the choices for unsealed jars, including reprocessing, are on cooling jars and checking the seal.

Before you make a pumpkin or squash butter

The butter most likely to send someone to the canner with a safety problem is pumpkin. Read pumpkin butter and other low-acid spreads before you make one, so you know how to keep it in the refrigerator or freezer instead.

References

1. Code of Federal Regulations, 21 CFR 150.110, Fruit butter (Cornell LII), current. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/21/150.110
2. National Center for Home Food Preservation, Beware: Pumpkin Butter, December 7, 2012. https://nchfp.uga.edu/blog/beware-pumpkin-butter
3. University of Tennessee Extension, Burney, Apples for the Holidays (apple butter adapted from USDA Agriculture Information Bulletin 539, rev. 2015, and NCHFP), rev. October 2020. https://bedford.tennessee.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/162/2021/09/applesforholidays.pdf
4. UC Master Food Preservers of Sacramento County, Monthly Wednesday Night Demonstration handout (Ball apple butter, Ball salted caramel pear butter, So Easy to Preserve pear butter), October 16, 2024. https://ucanr.edu/sites/sacmfp/files/403327.pdf
5. National Center for Home Food Preservation, Do I need to pre-sterilize my jars before canning?, May 21, 2014. https://nchfp.uga.edu/blog/do-i-need-to-pre-sterilize-my-jars-before-canning
6. Penn State Extension, LaBorde, Food for Profit: Commercial Production of Jams, Jellies and Fruit Butters, updated May 24, 2024. https://extension.psu.edu/food-for-profit-commercial-production-of-jams-jellies-and-fruit-butters
7. Penn State Extension, Morrow, Preserving White Peaches, updated March 22, 2024. https://extension.psu.edu/preserving-white-peaches