Sweet Spiced Pear Bread

My pear obsession is getting out of control.  First there was Spiced Pear Hand Pies then came Pear Cosmos and now we have pear bread.  Actually, what we had was a couple of leftover pears and I couldn't resist putting them to good use.

I'd actually been trying to decide what kind of pear bread to make for a while now.  I could have just chopped them up into the batter and made my life easy.  Or I could have gone all fancy, poached them and then baked them whole into the bread.  My friend Heather from GirliChef did just that recently and the result was absolutely gorgeous.

In the end I decided to split the difference.  I sliced the pears raw and inserted them into the batter such that every slice of the bread would have a slice of the pear.  A little easy, a little fancy and a whole lot of delicious.  Enjoy!

Ingredients
2 Eggs
1 Cup sugar
1 Stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 Teaspoon vanilla
1 Container (approx. 7 oz.) Greek style yogurt (full fat)
2 Cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 Teaspoons baking powder
1/2 Teaspoon baking soda
1 Teaspoon salt
1/2 Teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 Teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 Teaspoon nutmeg
2 Firm pears, peeled and cored

Using either a stand or hand mixer, add the eggs and sugar to a large bowl and beat together until fully combined.  Beat in the butter, vanilla and yogurt.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg.  Slowly stir the dry ingredients into the wet until all the flour is incorporated. Butter and flour a loaf pan (add parchment paper for easy removal) and pour in the batter.

Slice each pear into 4 or 5 vertical slices and insert the slices evenly into the batter in the pan.  The pears will stand because the batter is thick.  The goal is to have a pear slice in each loaf slice.  Bake in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 45 - 50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Dust with powdered sugar before serving.  Makes approximately 10 servings.