Yummy Experiment #51: Apple Pear Bread

Two weeks ago, we had a lone apple and a lone pear lurking around the house. We could’ve just eaten both fruits – that would be the easiest and simplest way to deal with it? But no. I wanted to bake something. Who knew apple and pear can be such a great pair? (pun intended) There were recipes for crumbles, crisps, chips, cakes, fries (!), muffins, among others.

But I saw Smitten Kitchen‘s recipe for Pear Bread and thought to myself, “maybe instead of using only pears, I can add apple into the mix”. So that’s what happened…I made Apple Pear Bread!

If you’d like to check out the full recipe of Pear Bread, feel free to hop on over to that site. To give full credit, I tried (with slight modifications) the recipe Smitten Kitchen shared that was “[a]dapted from Nancy McDermott’s Southern Cakes, which attributes it to one Cornelia Walker”. Whew! I’ll list the ingredients here though. Maybe you’d like to try it out after checking the ingredients.

Ingredients:
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 (optional)
3/4 cup butter, softened, or 3/4 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs, lightly beaten
2 cups sugar
2 to 4 pears firm, ripe pears, depending on size
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Instead of using “2 to 4 pears firm, ripe pears, depending on size”, I used one apple and one pear, then grated them. I didn’t add chopped walnuts. The recipe called for using a 10-inch tube pan or two 9 x 5 loaf pans. I used my bundt pan because it yields such pretty little baked goods. (Honestly, I just wanted to use it again after using it for the Eggnog Pound Cake. Haha.)

I started off by heating the oven to 350 F. I took a bowl and combined the dry ingredients. Then I grated the fruits, which turned out to be a juicy process altogether. In a separate bowl, I mixed the wet ingredients and added the grated apple and pear. Once it’s seriously mixed, I added the apple pear mixture to the flour mixture and mixed everything some more. Then I poured the batter into the bundt pan, which looked like this.

I know, not very pretty, right? Bear with me.

Then I baked it at 350 F for 65 minutes. After it cooled on a wire rack, I sprinkled it with confectioners sugar. It came out looking like this.

Now it’s pretty.

Once it cooled down, here’s the result of this baking experiment. Check out that slice!

Is the recipe a keeper? For sure!

Give this bread some time. Don’t eat it on the same day you bake it. For some reason, its flavor gets better and better as the days pass by, which makes it perfect to make in advance for special occasions. The next time you have an apple and a pear at home, why not try making this bread? It goes great with coffee or tea.