As I shared recently, I’ve been canning up a quite a bit of fruit lately, including pears. I had another 20 pound box of pears to address today and the plan was to make my favorite jam ever, Pear Vanilla Jam (from the blog, Food in Jars).
I know I’ve raved about this jam before – but it is simply the best jam I’ve ever tasted! It’s also ridiculously easy to make as there is no peeling of pears required and it’s a soft set. While canning up a batch today I was inspired to take the two primary flavors – pear and vanilla – and turn it into a luscious bread. It turned out so good, I knew I had to share it with you.
Start by taking 2 or 3 pears and blending them. I just put them through my Vitamix with a tiny bit of water. Notice I did not peel them and I did leave some chunks. I then scraped one vanilla bean with a spoon and mixed it into the pears. I then added the pod and let it all sit while I worked on the rest of the bread.
Blend 1 stick of butter (1/2 cup) with 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1/2 cup white sugar. Add two eggs.
Discard the vanilla pod from your pears and blend them into the mixture. Now, I used 2 cups of the pears and the resulting bread was VERY moist…. as in falling apart moist. If this appeals to you, by all means, add 2 cups. But if you prefer a bread that will be a little easier to manage and still have all the flavor – I’d reduce this to just one cup of pears.
In another bowl, mix 2 cups of flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda, ½ tsp salt, 1 tsp cinnamon, ¼ tsp nutmeg, ¼ tsp cloves, and ¼ tsp cardamom. You don’t have to add the spices, but I think they add a nice fall touch to this bread! You could also use whatever spices appeal to you.
Gently blend the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just mixed.
Pour into a lightly greased loaf pan and bake in a 350° oven for 40-60 minutes, until the toothpick comes out clean.
This bread smelled delicious coming out of the oven! I like that it’s different than your standard banana, pumpkin, or zucchini bread – but still feels like a distinctly fall recipe.
The 2 cups of pears yielded a very moist bread…so much so you’d almost prefer to eat it in a bowl with a fork! Again, reduce this closer to 1 cup if you want a bread that’s a bit more “portable.” I love the texture from leaving some of the chunks of pears in, too.
Lucky me… my pear vanilla jam was done just in time!
This bread goes perfectly with a cup of coffee and a dreary fall afternoon.
Enjoy!
I’ve got 5 pears from my neighbor’s tree ripening on my kitchen counter as I read this…..will be making this bread this weekend!
Enjoy! You’ll have to let me know what you think! 🙂
Hi Angela,
My bread is baking in the oven right now. I used 2 tsp of vanilla extract in place of the bean and it looked to be 2+ cups of pear puree. I’m assuming this is the recipe for 1 loaf of bread? I’ll let you know how it tastes in the morning! 🙂
One loaf = yes!
Oh my, going to have to try this -my girls love pears & I love any of these yummy breads, but never thought of trying a pear bread! Thanks for the idea – pinning it for later!
This looks delicious! Thank you so much for posting your recipe. Will be also trying this soon.
I made this today (in muffin form) and my daughter declared it the BEST. MUFFIN. EVER. 🙂 Pretty high compliment coming from an extremely picky 6 year old!
LOVE it!
Just made 2 small loaves! I also used 2 TBS vanilla extract in place of the bean and husband said it is a keeper!
Love the feedback!
where oh where is the pear/vanilla jam recipe
Made this bread last weekend and it was amazing. Thank you so MUCH for sharing it!
I’m glad you enjoyed it!
I am making this recipe and baking in mini loaf pans, “pairing” it with a jar of jam, and giving it as gifts.
**The pear jam of course!!
I made this yesterday and we LOVE it. My husband is picky – I mean that in a nice way, of course. He just doesn’t eat a lot of homemade sweets. Not a sweet eater, not a fruit eater. But he tasted this and said “this is one of the best things you’ve made in a long time.” So – high praise indeed! Thank you so much!
Thank you for this recepie- I love pears. I have been making this bread for months now, I triple the recipie & make several loafs & wrap them & freeze- i eat this in the am for breakfast with my daily smoothie. 🙂 They freeze very easy too.
Hi: What size loaf pan did you use? 9×5 or 8×4? Thanks, Sharon
I found your recipe a couple months ago and have made it three times already – so delicious! Fresh pears are expensive where I live so I substituted canned pears to make the puree and it worked great. Last time I actually forgot the eggs and didn’t realize until it was in the oven – I was so sad because I thought I had surely ruined it, but I guess all the extra moisture from the pears makes it an especially forgiving recipe – it turned out just lovely! Thanks so much for sharing this, I am sure my family will be enjoying this recipe for years to come! 🙂
This recipe sounds great. I am making them as muffins and have added Huckleberries. Can’t wait to try them
Do you seed your pears?
I just made this tonight! My 3 boys gobbled it up!!! I had 2 ripe pears which came out to 1 1/4 cup of purée; it was perfect consistency. I omitted the cardamom because I didn’t have any. I did add chopped walnuts and vanilla turbinado sugar to the top before baking. Slices were requested in tomorrow’s lunchboxes.
I have some vanilla rum pear butter/jam I made last year approximately how much would I use as a subsittute for the puree’d fresh pears