Lemon-Glazed Cardamom Pear Tea Bread
- Total Time
- 1 hour 15 minutes
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- ½cup vegetable oil, plus oil for greasing pans
- 1cup freshly pureed ripe pears (about 2 medium-size, peeled and cored)
- 1egg, slightly beaten
- 2teaspoons grated lemon peel
- ¼cup milk
- 2½cups all-purpose flour
- ½cup granulated sugar
- 1tablespoon baking powder
- 1teaspoon salt
- ½teaspoon freshly ground cardamom seeds
- ½cup chopped walnuts or pecans
- 1cup confectioners' sugar
- 1tablespoons lemon juice
- ½teaspoon freshly ground cardamom seeds (see note)
- Pinch of salt
- 1 to 2tablespoons cream or milk
- 1teaspoon butter, softened
For the Bread
For the Lemon Glaze
Preparation
- Step 1
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease one 9½-by-5½-inch loaf pan or three 5¼-by-3½-inch loaf pans.
- Step 2
To make the bread, combine the oil, pears, egg, lemon peel and milk in a small bowl. In a mixing bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cardamom seeds. Fold in the pear mixture until the dry ingredients are moistened. Stir in the nuts. Spoon the dough into the prepared pan or pans. Bake 55 to 60 minutes for a large loaf or 35 to 45 minutes for smaller loaves, or until they test done. Remove from the pan and cook on a rack.
- Step 3
While the bread bakes, stir together the glaze ingredients. Spoon the glaze over the still-warm bread. Continue to cool.
Private Notes
Comments
The lemon glaze ingredients list states "(see note)" re: the cardamom. But I can't find a note about cardamom in the recipe.
This was a great way to use up some ripe Bartlett pears that were a bit flavorless. To cut down on fat I substituted some apple sauce for the oil. I pureed 2 pears with 1/4 c vegetable oil and 1/4 c applesauce in the Vitamix. Left out the nuts, added a lot of lemon zest. For the glaze, I halved the powdered sugar and just added lemon juice to taste and then a bit of softened butter. Overall, super moist, not too sweet. Would add more cardamom next time. Will make again!
Wow, they're not kidding when they say fresh ground cardamom has more pop than the jarred stuff! I ground my own and 1/2 tsp was plenty. This has a lovely flavor. I skimped on the sugar by about 20%, which I normally do for quick breads and cookies; next time I would probably go with the full 1/2 cup. I can't believe this takes 1 TBSP of baking powder, but apparently that's what it takes to get the job done. I'll make this again.
Made without lemon zest or juice as I didn't want to overpower the pear or cardamom, which were still subtle. Very tender and moist. A good use of too soft pears.
The flavor on this is fantastic, but 55 minutes was too long baking in a standard loaf pan. I wish I would've started toothpicking at 45 minutes or so.
I wanted to use up some pears from a pear & cardamom infused vodka that I made for holiday gifting. I'm using pecans and lemons in other things, so switched them for almond... added a little extract and slivered almonds to the batter and a few more slivered almonds on top before baking. Because the pears already had some cardamom flavor, I only added a tiny bit more. I made 3 small loaves and will freeze two of them, so didn't bother with the glaze. Fantastic!
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