Ripe pears and autumn go together in my mind. Roasted pears and quick bread go really well together in this recipe any time of year. I wish I’d had red pears because they’re especially beautiful, but any kind of pear will do. Be patient and let the bread cool completely before cutting; it’ll slice better that way. If you can’t be patient, I won’t blame you at all.
Roasted
Pear Quick Bread
(adapted
from Erin Jeanne McDowell in the New York Times)
Ingredients
for the roasted pears
2
½ cups chopped pears (about 2 medium pears, cored and cut into ½-inch pieces)
2
tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1
teaspoon vanilla
Pinch
of fine sea salt (we had flakey sea salt so I ground it up with the mortar and
pestle
Ingredients
for the bread
2
½ cups all-purpose flour
2
teaspoons cinnamon
1
teaspoon baking powder
½
teaspoon baking soda
½
teaspoon fine sea salt (see note on salt in pear ingredients above)
½
cup vegetable oil
2
tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1
cup brown sugar
2
large eggs, at room temperature
½
teaspoon almond extract
¾
cup buttermilk
Directions
Heat
oven to 400 degrees. On a large baking sheet, toss pears with melted butter,
vanilla, and salt. Spread coated pears in an even layer. Roast until pears are
tender and beginning to brown on their edges, about 15 minutes. Remove from
oven and cool to room temperature. Lower oven temperature to 350 degrees.
Lightly
grease a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour,
cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
In
a large bowl, beat oil, butter, and brown sugar until well combined, about 1
minute. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after adding each and scraping the
bowl as necessary. Stir in almond extract.
Gently
mix in half the flour mixture, stirring until incorporated. Add buttermilk slowly,
mixing to combine, then add remainder of the flour mixture and mix until just
incorporated. Add cooled pears, using a rubber spatula to gently fold them into
the batter. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and spread in an even
layer.
Bake the bread until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 55 to 65 minutes. Let cool for 20 minutes in the pan, then remove from pan onto a cooling rack to cool completely before slicing.
Cover reveal!
Come Shell or High Water, book one in Molly’s new Haunted Shell Shop Mysteries, out next summer and available for pre-order now!
When widowed folklorist Maureen Nash visits a legendary North Carolina barrier island shell shop, she discovers its resident ghost pirate and the mystery of a local’s untimely death . . .
Impatient for the new book? Molly has plenty of others for you to enjoy.
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The
Boston Globe says Molly MacRae writes
“murder with a dose of drollery.” She’s the author of the award-winning,
national bestselling Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries and the Highland Bookshop
Mysteries. As Margaret Welch, she writes books for Annie’s Fiction. Her short
stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and she’s a
winner of the Sherwood Anderson Award for Short Fiction. Visit Molly on Facebook and Pinterest and connect with her on Twitter or Instagram.
