Lekvar - Hungarian Style Fruit Butter

Well due to general hectic-ness, I've not posted anything for ages. But I'm back :o) The other week as I was tidying out some kitchen cupboards, I came across a bag of dried pears, a BIG bag of crystallised ginger, and a bag of prunes all approaching their use by within the next few months, and definitely ready to expire before I'd had a chance to use them up in normal baking practices!

So after a bit of googling, I came across this recipe for Hungarian Lekvar, which is a dried fruit butter, made with dried apricots or prunes.

Since I'm a pathological recipe corrupter, I did a bit of modification, and went for prune and dark chocolate butter, to make use of a small bar of Lindt 95% chocolate which was too bitter for me and had even escaped several emergency chocolate cupboard raiding attempts. Inspired by the successful result, I decided to get more experimental and went for spiced pear and ginger, with a vanilla pod, cloves and star anise to add a spicy sweetness.

So far the concoctions have proved to be a versatile pair, although the prune and chocolate one is possibly a little confused about its identity and is treading a fine line between sweet and savoury. Or perhaps it's just me and my husband that are confused - he's definitely of the sweet camp, but I'm convinced it's a relish/chutney savoury wannabe.

Anyway, here's a run down of the situations in which they've been consumed so far...

1. Pear and ginger on warm out of the oven scones
2. Prune and chocolate on toast (a grown-up Nutella substitute...?)
3. Prune and chocolate on venison burgers
4. Pear and ginger sandwiched in the middle of a Victoria sponge
5. Prune and chocolate stirred into porridge
6. And both varieties straight out of the jar on a spoon by the aforementioned husband!