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Pear Bread

This cinnamon-spiced pear bread recipe proves that fall has a lot more to offer than apples and pumpkins! Ripe pears add sweetness and autumnal flavor to this easy, cake-like quick bread.

Slices of pear bread arranged on round white serving platter

Moist Pear Bread With Nuts

I bring you this pear bread recipe with a warning. After you try it, you may never want to bake anything else ever again. It is just that good. If I had pears in the kitchen, I’d be making it again right now.

To me, this pear bread is everything a quick bread should be. It’s moist, delicious, nutty, and just the right amount of sweet. I opted to make the bread in a tube pan rather than in bread pans. In some future making of this bread, I want to try it as a cake; I can almost taste it with cream cheese icing.

Quick breads are one of my favorite baked goods, from Blueberry Banana Bread to Pumpkin-Pecan Bread and Chocolate Zucchini Bread. Their flavors and texture lend themselves to being served any time of day, from breakfast to a midnight snack. They might not be pretty and drool-worthy like other baked treats, but they are every bit as delicious!

Slice of pear bread on plate with additional plates of bread and pears in background

Why You’ll Love This Pear Bread Recipe

Here’s what makes this pear bread such a standout:

  • Lovely fall flavors. In a world where everyone swoons over apples and pumpkin every fall, this pear bread is a welcome change. Finally, pears get their chance in the spotlight!
  • Supremely moist. We might hate that word, but we love that quality in a quick bread! The grated pears give this bread a nice, tender crumb.
  • It can be served any time of day. From breakfast to dessert, this quick bread has you covered. It seamlessly transitions from weekday treat to a dessert for a party.
Overhead view of pear bread ingredients

What You’ll Need

Scroll down to the recipe card to find the ingredient quantities and recipe instructions.

  • All-purpose flour – Here’s how to measure flour for baking.
  • Baking soda and powder – Quick breads are by definition leavened by baking soda and/or powder rather than yeast.
  • Salt
  • Ground cinnamon
  • Chopped nuts – Pecans, walnuts, or another nut you like or have on hand.
  • Butter – If you’d like, you can substitute 3/4 cup of vegetable oil for butter.
  • Eggs – Lightly beat the eggs before adding them to the recipe.
  • Granulated sugar
  • Pears
  • Vanilla extract – Either store-bought or homemade vanilla extract.

What Kind of Pears Are Best for Baking?

The most easy-to-find varieties of pears for baking are Bosc, Anjou, and Bartlett. Asian pears also work well in baked goods thanks to their firmness, although they’re not as widely available year-round.

How to Make Pear Bread

As with most quick bread recipes, this pear bread is a cinch to put together. Here’s what you’ll need to do.

  • Prepare. Preheat your oven to 350°F and lightly grease and flour a 10-inch tube pan or two 9″x 5″ loaf pans.
  • Mix the dry ingredients. Whisk the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a mixing bowl. 
  • Coat the nuts. Scoop out about 1/4 cup of the dry mixture and combine it with the nuts, tossing to coat. Stir the nuts into the bowl with the flour mixture.
  • Mix the wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, beat the butter, eggs, sugar, pears, and vanilla extract until mixed. 
  • Finish the batter. Stir the pear mixture into the flour mixture just until combined.
  • Bake. Pour the batter into the prepared pan(s) and bake for 60 to 70 minutes, or until the bread is browned and firm on top and a pick inserted into the center comes out clean.
  • Cool. Let the pear bread cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then remove it from the pan and place it directly on the rack to finish cooling.

Tips for Success

Read over my baking tips for beginners, then follow these additional pointers for perfect pear bread.

  • Soften the butter. This will ensure that it mixes evenly into the batter. Softened butter also holds more air when beaten, giving your pear bread a lighter texture.
  • Use ripe but firm pears. You’ll want them ripe so they’re sweet, but also firm so they don’t introduce too much moisture into the batter or turn to mush when you’re grating them.
  • Let the bread cool completely before slicing. The baking process actually continues as bread cools, so as tempting as it is to dig in right away, you’re better off waiting—the bread will hold together much better when sliced if it’s cooled.
Overhead view of pear bread cooling on wire rack

Serving Suggestions

You can easily dress up this pear bread to serve it as a dessert for a get-together with family and friends, or leave it as-is for a sweet afternoon snack. If you’d like to make it extra special, here are a few ideas:

Variations

You can use a combination of apples and pears for this pear bread, or use all apples if you’d like—of course, then it’s no longer pear bread! Switch up the spices and try substituting cardamom for a portion of the cinnamon, or adding a bit of nutmeg or allspice.

Another option is to glaze the bread—the glaze from my Caramelized Banana Bread with Brown Butter Glaze would be phenomenal—or add cream cheese frosting. (Try the maple cream cheese frosting from my Peanut Butter Cake!)

Overhead view of pear bread on plates and round serving tray

How to Store

Pear bread will keep for up to 3 days wrapped at room temperature. To keep it fresh longer, store in the refrigerator for up to a week.

Can I Freeze This Recipe?

Yes, you can freeze pear bread for up to 3 months. To do this, wrap the entire loaf or individual slices in plastic wrap and freeze in a freezer bag or airtight container. Thaw at room temperature before serving.

Slices of pear bread on two plates and platter

More Recipes With Pears

Pear Bread

Yield 12 to 16 servings
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour 10 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 30 minutes

This Pear Bread is moist, nutty, and versatile enough to go from breakfast to snack to dessert!

Overhead view of sliced pear bread on round serving tray

Ingredients

  • 3 cups (360g) all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 cup (120g) chopped pecans, walnuts, or other nut
  • 3/4 cup (170g) butter, softened*
  • 3 large eggs, lightly beaten
  • 2 cups (400g) granulated sugar
  • 2 cups peeled and finely grated ripe, firm pears (3 to 4 medium pears)
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease and flour a 10-inch tube pan or two 9″x 5″loaf pans.
  2. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Scoop out about 1/4 cup of this mixture and combine it with the nuts to coat. Stir back into the flour mixture.
  3. In a separate bowl, beat the butter, eggs, sugar, pears, and vanilla until mixed. (This won't make a smooth mixture.)
  4. Add the pear mixture to the flour mixture, stirring just until combined and the batter is evenly moistened.
  5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan(s). Bake for 60-70 minutes, or until the bread is browned and firm on top. A pick inserted into the center should come out clean.
  6. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Then, remove from the pan and place top side up on a wire rack to cool completely.

Notes

*May substitute 3/4 cup vegetable oil for butter.

Recipe adapted from Southern Cakes.

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    72 Comments on “Pear Bread”

  1. I love making quick breads. This one looks really yummy.

  2. the classis banana bread for sure (:

  3. This looks delicious. In the fall, I’m always trying to come up with an apple bread recipe to use up the extras. Maybe this would work? My favorite quick bread is pumpkin bread hands down!

  4. i love quickbreads – this one sounds perfect. pears must make it very moist.

  5. I always look for baking recipes with pears, Jen, but they are not that common. This looks super yummy, I’ll be trying it!

  6. I make some pear muffins that I really love. This sounds great too!

  7. what kind of pears did you use? bosc? bartlett?

  8. I just baked some pear bread. I just installed a brand new oven and this is my first time in baking anything in my life. I used crushed hazel nut instead of walnut. Delicious, although there’s not a hint of pear that I can taste. In my case, it took 40 minutes in the oven. Initially, I grate the pears by hand, but gave up and used a blender, which worked well. I used 4 pears in total to yield 2 cups of blended pear. As this is my first bake, I spent sometime googling the ingredients, vanilla, cinnamon, baking powder are all new to me. I couldn’t find any pecan or walnut in the local market, so I bought some hazel nut, which I pressed with a big knife to crush it to chunks. The result is 5 loaves of nice looking pear breads, I’m going to give one to my mom and see if she’ll like it.

  9. I love quick breads too, what is there not to love. My favorite is Banana, I stock pile really ripe bananas in my freezer so I can make it anytime. This look fantastic.

  10. This looks so yummy! My mom has the greatest banana bread recipe – so popular with our friends that she’s making a mini loaf for all of our wedding guests!

  11. It’s nice to see pears shine in a recipe! You honestly rarely ever see them. I made a pear-cornmeal cake one time long ago, but can’t remember seeing pears elsewhere!

    I need one of those pans. Can you believe I don’t have one?

  12. I love Bread recipes! At Christmas I give several gift baskets to friends. I’m always looking for a new bread recipes. I’ll have to give this a try! Bet it would be real good with a cup of coffee!

  13. Your pear bread is outstanding – it’s perfectly baked and looks wonderful. I’ve never tried a pear bread before but you’ve definitely peaked my curiosity.

  14. Helene, thank you!

    tian, I’m a big fan of banana bread, too.

    Stefanie, your apple bread idea is definitely worth a try. Sounds good to me!

    kimberleyblue, it is very moist.

    Patricia, I don’t find many pear recipes either. Such a shame because they are so good!

    Julie, pear muffins sound delicious. Yum!

    lori, I’m pretty sure I used Bosc pears. I got whatever looked the best at the grocery store.

    kiat, I love the idea of hazelnuts in pear bread.

    Katie, I’ve never frozen bananas. I’ll have to try that.

    Ashley, your mom is a trooper! That is quite an undertaking.

    Abby, I couldn’t part with my tube pan. Lucky for you, this bread works well in loaf pans, too. Or, I would think a Bundt pan would work.

    Cindy, I usually give quick breads for the holidays, too. This one would be a great addition to your recipe collection.

    giz, thanks so much! I had not heard of pear bread either, but I’m so glad I’ve gotten to know it. 🙂

  15. I love cinnamon bread, strawberry bread, chocolate bread…

  16. I cannot wait to try this!

  17. Meryl, sounds like you and I have a similar affection for quick breads. 🙂

    christie, let me know what you think when you’ve made it.

  18. Great looking bread and blog! If I am baking, I know where to come to get a recipe.

  19. It looks realy delicious. I’ve never made a pear cake, this could be a chance.

  20. Morgana, it’s very, very good. I highly recommend it.

  21. this is definitely going on my TO-MAKE-SOON (long) list. Thanks for sharing. I love things pear!

  22. Stephanie, I hope you’ll like it! It’s so, so good.

  23. I’ve made that recipe tons of times and used canned pears, fresh and always chopped them not grated them. I’ve baked it in a loaf pan and as a cake. It’s so good that I use it in my wedding cakes often.

    That is a wicked cookbook. 🙂

  24. Lorrie, I bet this makes a great wedding cake! Something a bit different than the traditional white cake.

  25. That fabulous first picture alone has sold me on the idea of making pear bread some time! 🙂

  26. Y, I can’t imagine anyone not loving this. Enjoy!

  27. I have now made the pear ‘bread’ twice. It makes 2 loaf tins (as we call them in NZ). It freezes well. Lovely moist cake. Good to find a cake recipe using pears. I love your site.

  28. Karyn, I’m glad you like it! I find myself wanting to make this quite often. It’s just so good!

  29. I’m off to the kitchen to make this bread. I’ll post pics on my blog when I’m done. I can’t wait to try it!!!

  30. Monica, I just made this again a couple of weeks ago. So, so good. Enjoy!

  31. Bought 4 qt. bartlets for a couple of dollars this am at the local farmer’s market. Landed on this site looking for unusual things to do with my pears.

    The pic looks scrumptious. I will be trying this
    recipe immediately.

    I love the ease with which “newbies” can interact on your site. The comments and responses are very helpful and interesting. I will be visiting often.

  32. Welcome, sharon! Enjoy the bread!

  33. I just made this tonight! My loaf pan may be a bit large because I did not have enough for two, which was fine because I made mini muffins out of the remaining batter. Would you mind helping me ‘problem solve’? The perimeter of the bread rose first, and almost created a ‘crust’ before the middle had a chance to rise. Do you have any idea why this happened? My e-mail is trying4two at gmail dot com :O).

  34. Kim, I’ll send you an email so we can discuss. 🙂

  35. I LOVE this bread! I just made it this past weekend and it’s one of my new favorites! I’m going to post about it on my blog sometime today. Thanks so much for the recipe!

  36. When you combine the eggs, butter, sugar, etc. Do you mean with an electric mixer or just by hand, stirring?

    Thanks!

  37. Milou, either way is fine. It’s simple enough to mix that you don’t have to use a mixer. Enjoy!

  38. Hi Jennifer, I just made this recipe yesterday (you can see my newest post on my blog for details), and I wanted to let you know that as always your featured recipes are top-notch as are your literary skills of persuasion and description. My family loved the pear bread–my father-in-law declared it was the best “cake” he’s ever had. And you’re so right about the addictive qualities of this bread!! I just want to keep eating… this will be a staple in my repertoire for sure!

  39. I actually made this bread and is quite pleased. I used a 10-inch tube pan to bake this bread. I used white whole wheat flour in pace of all-purpose flour; used oil instead of butter; 4 red pears (purchase weight: 2 pounds) and coarsely grated the pears using the largest holes of my box grater. Used a mixer to put the bread together like any other quick breads using a mixer. Baked for 60 minutes and looks exactly like the photo. This recipe is a keeper.

    For those who knows this recipe includes the buttermilk glaze, don’t use it. It was pretty on the bread, but I like my glaze to harden where you can wrap a slice with plastic wrap. The glaze stayed wet. Next time, just sprinkle the bread with powdered sugar or just leave it plain as pictured above.

  40. Thanks for the pear bread recipe. Everybody that has tried it says it’s the best quick bread they have ever had!! I did make a couple of changes. I canned pears and than ran the peelings and cores thru a juice and used the pear mush in the bread. I heated the mush and added thickner to make it the thickness of mashed bannanas. But the real kicker was I linned the pan with walnut crumbs and raw surger. It gives the bread a wonderful crunchy crust. People love this with all of my quick breads.

  41. Would it ruin this recipe to use half whole wheat flour?

  42. Would it ruin this recipe to use half whole wheat flour and to put them in a muffin tin instead? I’m always looking for breakfast muffins and I would love to turn this into a little healthier muffin recipe for my kids for breakfast. If I substitute oil for the butter does that make it healthier? Any ideas to make it a little healthier but still so tasty? Any help would be great!

  43. Darcy, I think using whole wheat flour would be fine. Making muffins should only change your baking time. I don’t know that there is any advantage of oil vs. butter. As many muffins as this would make, there wouldn’t be that much butter in each one.

  44. Try substituting the cinnamon and vanilla with 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of ground fennel. Turned out great!

  45. I hate this recipe. It was so delicious I couldn’t stop eating it! Seriously delicious! I didn’t peel the pears, just gratd them and scooped out the pulp…left a lot of the juices in the recipe. I also used vegan margarine and 1/4 canola (boost the omega 3’s). SO GOOD! And the whole house smelled amazing! Thank you! 🙂 🙂

  46. I would like to exchange links with your site http://www.bakeorbreak.com
    Is this possible?

  47. I just had to try this recipe immediately when I saw it on your site. Could you please let me know how thick the batter should be? For some reason when I made it the bread never firmed up, in fact I baked it for almost two hours and it just became more and more soupy and “sticky” except for the edges. I’m wondering if I needed to include more flour or if I grated the pears too much (they became more like pear mush than strips of pear like you’d get strips of cheese on a cheese grate). Any thoughts on how I could make it next time? The batter and edge crust tasted AMAZING so I’m really looking forward to trying the bread.

    • Estella, my first guess is that your batter was over-mixed. You might also check the accuracy of your oven’s temperature. I have a thermometer that can go inside the oven that gives me an idea of how accurate my oven’s temperatures are. The pears don’t really grate like cheese. They’re going to be pretty mushy. Good luck and enjoy!

  48. Thanks Jennifer! And thank you for responding so quickly. Could you give me an idea of how think the batter should be? I tried again last night and was careful not to overmix but got the same result. I’m thinking that the “stickiness” I’m seeing in the pan is the release of the pear juices so I might try adding more flour? I even tried baking a little of the batter in muffin cups but those didn’t firm up either.

  49. Thank you for this recipe. My boyfriend had experienced a great pear bread at one time in his life and had a moment of euphoria thinking back to this bread, so naturally I wanted to attempt to make some. Today I searched online for recipes and stumbled across this one. I made a few changes by cutting my pears in chunks and using coconut oil in place of butter and it was fantastic! Now on the search for more of a bread pear bread and less of a dessert pear bread. Thank you!

  50. Oh! I also used hazel nuts and added cinnamon to the flour I dusted the pan with! Yummy!

  51. My 1 1/2 year old loves pears and they are awesome for his belly. Problem . . .he’s allergic to eggs. Any thoughts on how to replace the eggs in this recipe?
    Thanks!

  52. I made this in two loaf pans, had one for me and my husband at home and then took the other to work. Amazing texture and flavor! I couldn’t really tell that it was pear, however. My boss totally raved about it, and I’m going to give her the recipe!

  53. I made this two weeks ago and again today . It is really delicious bread. We have pear trees in our garden . So now I have a fantastic easy recipe to make with them. This time I added 1/2 tsp apple pie spice just to spice it up a bit. It only took about 50 minutes in my over to bake it. It also slices better if you let it get room temperature. I found the texture and flavor even better the next day. Husband loved it!! Me too.

    Thanks
    Kat

  54. I have 3 pear trees I gave away tons last year and still have several bushel so I decided to c
    Peel core and chop them in my food processor and can them
    I will try this recipe using them
    Looks yummy

  55. The recipe looks delicious and I have a bunch of ripe pears that need to be used. Do you think I can substitute yogurt for the butter? I did so when I made banana nut bread and it seem to work well.

  56. unsalted butter or salted butter

  57. I love, love, LOVE this bread. I’ve made it a handful of times, and it’s definitely a crowd pleaser.

    One little tip: I don’t tend to have fresh pears on hand, so I use canned pears. I just drain the juice and since the fruit is so soft, I use a hand blender to get it into a mush like applesauce instead of grating it.

  58. This cake bread is fantastic but with half de sugar… 1 cup of sugar is quite enough. We can also use other nuts than pecan and it is perfect. I have also used 1 cup of whole wheat organic flour and 2 cups of white unbleached flour. 

  59. I definitely will try this with our Asian pear trees, we also have pecan trees. Having a small farm we like to use our produce from the farm. This sounds wonderful!! Elaine Dow

  60. CAN I REPLACE THE PEARS FOR ZUCCHINI?

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