I am newbie to the immersion blender fan club, and I'm still consistently surprised by what a versatile and all-around awesome tool it is. Just the other day, I was innocently drooling over Tracy from Shutterbean's recipe for Cardamom Pear Butter, when her unexpected use of an immersion blender to puree the fruit just about made me fall off my chair.

Let me back up a moment. In my family, making apple sauce and apple butter was an annual production involving long hours peeling and coring apples, multiple pots of bubbling apples, and most of all, a gigantic food mill to mash it all into a puree. This is just how it was done. It never occurred to me there was any other way to transform fruit into a sauce fit for spooning over ice cream.

Needless to say, I am completely over the moon to realize that my immersion blender can take the place of the gigantic food mill. More likely than not, it will also do a better job of making the puree silky smooth. I also like that the immersion blender makes smaller batches more feasible (no point in hauling out the food mill or anything less than a year's supply in my family).

I know I'm one of the last ones to the party on this particular tip, but just in case I'm not, I feel that it's my duty to spread the word. Now if only I could get the immersion blender to peel and core as well...

Have you ever done this?

• Get The Recipe! Cardamom Pear Butter from Shutterbean

Related: How to Make a Small, Quick Batch of Apple Sauce

(Image used with permission: Tracy Benjamin from Shutterbean)