Peach Passion Fruit Butter

If you’ve never had fruit butter before, please be aware that there’s no actual butter. So sorry to disappoint… but I promise it’s still delicious.

Fruit butter is not quite a jam, not a jelly, but in the same family of spreadable deliciousness. Fruit is puréed, lightly sweetened and cooked down to a thick and spreadable. Although it’s easy to prep, a good fruit butter requires patience – about 1 – 2 hours of patience. I’m hesitant to give you an exact time on how long it will take to cook, it depends on a number of things, like the moisture content of your fruit, how high your heat is up, the size of your pot, etc. You’ll have to trust your instincts and a few tricks to know when the fruit butter is ready:

• When you draw a wooden spoon across the bottom of the pot, the fruit butter is thick enough that the trail remains.
• When mounded onto a spoon, the fruit butter holds its shape for 2 minutes.

At the last minute I decided to add in a pinch of saffron threads… half because I have this incessant need to add random spices to things, and half because I opened my pantry and saffron was the first thing my eyes landed on.

 

Peach Passion Fruit Butter

adapted from smitten kitchen
makes ~2 cups in 1-2 hours

Ingredients

10 passion fruits, pulp removed (about 1/2 cup of passion fruit juice)
3lbs peaches, peeled, pitted and chopped (I used a combination of white peaches and white nectarines)
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 lemon, juiced
pinch of saffron threads (optional)

Directions

Cut passion fruit in half and scrape out pulp. Push the pulp and seeds through a fine sieve, or, alternately, pulse in a food processor and strain seeds out. You should have about 1/2 cup of juice. Set aside.

To peel peaches, score the bottoms with an “x”, and place in boiling water for 30 seconds – 1 minute, until the skin starts to pull away. Remove and place in a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking and cool the peaches. The peel should slip right off. Remove the pits and chop peaches into roughly 1″ pieces. Place in a dutch oven or large pot, along with 1/2 cup water. Cook until the fruit is tender, about 20-25 minutes.

Purée the fruit either in a blender, a food processor, or using an immersion blender.  The chunkiness is up to you – I like my fruit butters to be as smooth as possible, so I puréed it very well. Add sugar, lemon juice, and saffron threads, if using. Continue to cook over medium-low heat at a gentle boil for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally and more often towards the end as the fruit thickens.  Add in passion fruit juice. Continue to cook until thickened and meets one of the following “doneness” criteria:

• When you draw a wooden spoon across the bottom of the pot, the fruit butter is thick enough that the trail remains.
• When mounded onto a spoon, the fruit butter holds its shape for 2 minutes.

Place in air-tight jars and let cool to room temperature. Chill. It will keep for about 2 weeks.

If you want to can the fruit butter to preserve for a long time, head over to smitten kitchen for canning instructions.