Pear Bread

Wow, I've really been seriously slacking on updating this blog! I have a considerable amount of recipes to post from the past few months. Hopefully I'll get a few done today. Here is a pear bread - courtesy of our "Free Fruit Tuesdays" at work. For some reason, there was a lot of fruit leftover at the end of the day (after I took my normal share!). I never grab a pear, but remembered wanting to try this recipe. So I grabbed a couple and got to baking over the weekend! Perfect for the start of fall. :)

Adapted from: www. bakeorbreak.com

INGREDIENTS
(I used half of the ingredients listed below and made one loaf, below yields 2 loaves)
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 cup chopped pecans (original recipe uses walnuts)
3/4 cup butter, softened (may substitute 3/4 cup vegetable oil)
3 eggs, lightly beaten
2 cups granulated sugar
2 cups peeled and finely grated ripe, firm pears
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350°. Lightly grease and flour a 10-inch tube pan or two 9″x 5″loaf pans.
Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Scoop out about 1/4 cup of this mixture and combine it with nuts to coat. Stir back into the flour mixture.
In a separate bowl, combine butter, eggs, sugar, pears, and vanilla. Add the pear mixture to the flour mixture, stirring just until flour disappears and batter is evenly moistened.
Pour batter into prepared pan(s). Bake for 60-70 minutes, or until bread is browned and firm on top. A pick inserted into the center should come out clean.
Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Then, remove from pan and place top side up on a plate or wire rack to cool completely.

Pear & Cranberry Gingersnap Crisp

I was looking for a new fall recipe and this looked perfect! It was very good, however, I felt there was a flavor that was overpowering and I think it was the ground cloves. The recipe calls for 1/2 teaspoon and if I make this again, I would reduce that to 1/4 teaspoon. This crisp was easy and quick to make and very suitable for getting into fall baking!

Adapted from: http://www.visionsofsugarplum.com/

INGREDIENTS
3 large pears, peeled, cored, thinly sliced
3 tablespoons orange juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground clove (I would reduce this to 1/4 next time)
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 cup sweetened dried cranberries
1 cup coarsely chopped gingersnaps
1/2 cup old fashioned oats
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup finely chopped walnuts, toasted
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Coat a 9-inch cake pan with cooking spray.In a large bowl, stir together pear, orange juice, vanilla, cinnamon, clove, ginger and cranberries until combined; place into cake pan.In a medium bowl, stir together gingersnaps, oats, brown sugar, flour, walnuts and salt until well combined; knead in butter, using fingertips, until mixture starts to clump together. Evenly sprinkle over pears.Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Reduce heat to 350 and bake an additional 10-15 minutes (covering with foil if it browns too quickly), or until pears are tender. Cool on a wire rack.