*sings* Look for the... pear necessities...

Yes, yes, I'll admit that's a bit of a b@st@rdization of a Disney song, but I get bouncy and singy when I'm cooking... and I am kinda corny, so that's what came from my mouth while I was mixing up a new recipe for pear bread. After two weeks of "plumming it," making everything I could think of from the explosion of plums my mum's tree had, it's nice being able to switch to something new. Now the pears are ripe and I'm on the hunt for new pear recipes!

Yesterday I started the pear-fest with a pear bread recipe I found at allrecipes.com. Of course, I ALWAYS change recipes, according to our likes and dislikes, allergies and so forth, so the link is to the recipe I started with, but here it is with my changes:

INGREDIENTS:
3 c all-purpose flour
1/4 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
1 T cinnamon

1/2 c vegetable oil
3 eggs
2 c sugar
2 t vanilla extract
2 ripe bananas
2 c pear puree

2 c peeled, chopped pears

(Suggestion: Because it takes a little while longer than dumping ingredients into a bowl, I suggest preparing the pears first.)

-- Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt & cinnamon in bowl.
-- In separate bowl, mix oil, eggs, sugar, vanilla, bananas and pear puree.
-- Hand-stir chopped pears into wet mix, then add wet mix to dry, stirring until just mixed.
-- Grease & flour TWO 8x5x3 loaf pans and add batter.
-- Bake in preheated 325 degree F oven for 1 hour & 15 minutes. Cool before removing from pans.



It's a super yummy, light tasting, moist bread, very similar to a banana bread (even had I not added bananas *chuckle*). Next time (and there WILL be a next time!), I think I'll lessen the oil just a touch more, only use one banana, and add another cup of puree, to give it a little boost on the pear flavor. As soon as the loaves were cooled, I wrapped the second for the freezer -- keeping temptation at bay -- but oooh wasn't this one yummy to dig into!