Bread Baking Day #2: Pear, Ginger,and Vanilla Quickbread

This month's bread baking day is being hosted by Becke of Columbus Foodie. As you can see by my title, she chose "Bread with Fruit" as this month's theme. I had plans to make a bread that begins with a starter made from fermented apples. I forgot about the apples fermenting on the top of my refrigerator and had to toss them out. I'll start that up again soon and make it another time. So, with my busy weekend of Blogathonning I've decided that a quick bread will be my best bet for this event. I love love love ginger and pears aren't too shabby either. This is a recipe I've had for years and years and I'm very happy for the theme this month, as I haven't made it for years and years..I had quite forgotten about it buried in my recipe box. I hope you like it too!

Pear Ginger Quickbread:

1/4 cup unsalted butter (1/2 stick or 2 ounces) at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/4 tsp vanilla bean paste (or the same amount of vanilla extract)
1/2 cup small dice crystallized ginger
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
zest of one lemon, minced
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 cups pears, peeled and diced (medium dice will do) I used Anjou pears, but most should work in this recipe. I've also used bosc with great success
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-Preheat your oven to 350f. Prepare one 9x7" bread pan by spraying it with pan spray.
-Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
-Cream together the butter, sugar and lemon zest until light and fluffy.
-Add the eggs, one at a time, incorporating well between each addition, mix in the vanilla.
-Alternate mixing in the sifted flour mixture and the buttermilk, starting with 1/3 flour, then 1/2 the buttermilk and so on ending with the flour, mix until the flour just starts to disappear. Fold in the pears.
-Scrape the batter into the prepared bread pan and bake for 50-60 minutes (check earlier if you don't trust your oven).
-Cool in the pan for about 5 minutes then turn out onto a cooling rack to complete the cooling.
Slice, spread with butter or cream cheese, or eat it naked! I think next time I might try this with blueberries instead of the pears. I believe Becke will be posting a roundup for this event on her site in the next few days, I'll have a link up once it is posted!

Happy Baking!

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