Pear Bread

Received a lot of pears in my Bountiful Basket and needed to do something with them.  I found this recipe and I really like it.  I sliced pears and placed them on top but most descended into the bread.  Steve liked the bread just not the chunks of pear.  Next batch they will be omitted. 


Handy tip - to shred pears, peel the pear while it is whole and grate until you get to the middle.  You will end up with a square core when you are done but it is better then having your fingers in the grater.  I finally figured this trick out when I was on the last pear, up until that point I was coring and peeling and trying to grate the slippery pieces.

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 cup chopped walnuts
3/4 cup butter, softened
3 eggs, lightly beaten
2 cups granulated sugar
2 cups peeled and finely grated ripe, firm pears
2 teaspoons vanilla extract


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.

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

I was given the cookbook Chocolate Never Faileth which included this recipe.  It hides the zucchini really well so you can fool your kids and tastes good too!  If you look at the picture closely you will notice that it looks really dry around the edges.  The recipe says to bake about an hour, I would recommend checking at 45 minutes.

1 1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups zucchini, grated and drained (see note)
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/3 cup cocoa
3 1/2 cups flour
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350.  Coat two 8-inch loaf pans with nonstick cooking spray.  Cream sugar and butter.  Add eggs and mix well.  Mix in sour cream, vanilla and zucchini.  Add all the remaining ingredients except for the chocolate chips in the order listed; mix well.  Add chocolate chips and stir.  Divide the batter between the two loaf pans.  Bake for about an hour.  Remove from pans and cool on a wire rack.

Note: if possible, grate the zucchini ahead of time and let it sit for a while so the moisture settles and drains it off.

Breakfast Cake

Everyone else calls this coffee cake but since I don't drink coffee the name is breakfast cake. The recipe is from my Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook which is about 29 years old.

1/4 cup salad oil
1 beaten egg
1/2 cup milk
11/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Spicy Topping
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon melted butter
1/2 cup broken nuts, optional

Combine salad oil, egg and milk. Sift together dry ingredients; add to milk mixture; mix well. Pour into greased 9x9x2-inch pan. Sprinkle with Spicy Topping. Bake at 375 degrees about 25 minutes.

Pumpkin Caramel Cheesecake Turtle Bread

Jen and Robert inspired our pumpkin carving party and I wanted to have treats that were around the theme so I went to a wonderful website that I found called Culinary Concoctions by Peabody. Every picture makes my mouth water and makes me want to run into the kitchen and be a chef.

Here are a list of changes I made either because I was lazy or I didn't plan properly -

• I didn't sift the dry ingredients
• I only had olive oil in the house so I used that
• Didn't have enough brown sugar for the pumpkin bread so topped it off with Baker's sugar
• Lyle's Golden Syrup - couldn't find it in my little neck of the woods so used Karo Syrup
• Mini loaf pans were too small so they overflowed

Despite all of the little changes the bread tasted great!!

Pumpkin Bread:
2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

1 cup pumpkin puree(plain, not the already made pumpkin pie kind)

1 tsp vanilla extract

½ cup canola oil

2 large eggs

¾ cup granulated sugar(Baker's sugar (superfine) recommended)

¾ cup light brown sugar, loosely packed

Caramel Cheesecake Filling:

8 oz cream cheese, at room temperature

¼ cup brown sugar, tightly packed

2 TBSP Lyle’s Golden Syrup

2 TBSP Caramel Sauce (store bought or homemade)

1 TBSP all-purpose flour

1 large egg

Topping:

Chocolate Glaze (recipe follows)

Caramel Sauce (store bought or homemade)

1 cup pecans, roughly chopped

Preheat oven to 325F.

Lightly grease and flour three mini loaf pans (3 ½ -x- 5 inch).

Using a stand mixer (or a medium bowl and electric beaters) with the paddle attachment, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, syrup and caramel sauce for about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Add egg and beat for another minute. Scrape down the sides and bottom of bowl and add flour. Beat flour into mixture until fully incorporated. If using stand mixer, transfer cheesecake filling to a separate bowl. Set aside. If using the stand mixer, clean and dry the bowl to use again.

In another bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

Using a stand mixer (or a medium bowl and electric beaters) with the paddle attachment, place pumpkin puree, vegetable oil, eggs, vanilla, and sugars into the bowl and beat for about 1 minute.Add flour mixture into the pumpkin mixture and mix just until combined. This is a quick bread so you don’t want to over mix.

Pour half of the pumpkin bread batter evenly into the three prepared loaf pans (I find it best to use an ice cream scoop. I like to use 2 scoops for the bottom). Spread the batter out evenly.

Spoon cheesecake mixture on top of pumpkin batter layer, a little less than 2/3 of a cup.

Scoop the remaining batter on top of the cheesecake layer, again about 2 ice cream scoops worth.

If you don’t want to bother with the layering you can just spoon some pumpkin batter, then cheesecake, then pumpkin batter again and use a knife to make swirls in the bread. Tastes just as good.

Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until a wooden skewer inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Cool bread in pans for 10 minutes. Remove bread from pans and place on a wire rack to cool completely. Let breads cool completely before glazing.

Pour chocolate glaze over breads, about 1/3 cup each. Sprinkle pecans on top of the glaze. Followed by extra caramel sauce if desired (but really, why wouldn’t you want it ).

Chocolate Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted

¼ cup dark unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted

2-4 TBSP milk (depending on how thick you want your glaze)

In a small bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar, cocoa powder and 2 TBSP of milk until smooth and glossy. If you want a thinner glaze add more milk, 1 TBSP at a time.