This morning I finally made the Fresh Pear Coffee Cake recipe I'd been eyeing for a few weeks.

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This recipe was actually in a cookbook (Better Homes and Gardens Annual Recipes 1997 (affiliate link)) that my great-grandmother got me for Christmas while I was a teenager. This recipe has just been sitting in this cookbook, with several other coffee cake recipes, waiting for me to make it. I was able to make this since I had some leftover plain Greek yogurt in my fridge, and pears that my friend Jen brought me that really needed to be cooked with.

Fresh Pear Coffee Cake, fresh from the oven

This was a very pretty coffee cake; the pictures don't do it justice. The streusel on this browned very nicely. I enjoyed having the crisp sugary top. The cake itself was soft and billowy. The yogurt made the cake moist. Unfortunately, I didn't have the pears distributed well, so not every bite had pears in it. I wonder if I should have strewn the pears on the batter and pressed them into the cake, rather than mixing them in, to get them more even.

This was a good coffee cake with pears in it, and both Alex and I enjoyed it. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this coffee cake, but I think that I was somehow expecting something even more delicious. In the future, I'd like to try something to maximize the pearyness of this recipe; maybe I'd try slicing the pears and arranging them evenly under a layer of batter. Overall, this is a solid recipe worth trying; perhaps I'll even make it better some day.

a corner of Fresh Pear Coffee Cake

Want more coffee cake? Try Sour Cream Coffee Cake, Quick Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake, or Strawberry Coffee Cake.

📖 Recipe

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Fresh Pear Coffee Cake

A delicious coffee cake made with fresh pears. Be sure to distribute the pears evenly through the batter to be sure to have fruit in every bite.

Prep Time20

Cook Time40

Total Time1

Course: Breakfast

Cuisine: American

Author: Leona Konkel

Ingredients

Streusel

⅓ cup sugar
¼ cup brown sugar
3 tablespoons flour
½ teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons butter or margarine

Cake

1 ¾ cup flour (I used ⅔ cup white whole wheat flour, and all-purpose flour for the rest)
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon salt
2 eggs
¾ cup sugar
¼ cup margarine
1 teaspoon vanilla
8 ounces sour cream (or ½ cup Greek yogurt mixed with ½ cup milk)
1 ½ cups peeled and chopped pears

Instructions

Combine ⅓ cup sugar, brown sugar, 3 tablespoons flour, and ½ teaspoon cinnamon. Cut in 2 tablespoons butter or margarine with a pastry cutter (affiliate link). Set streusel aside.
Combine remaining dry ingredients. In a large mixing bowl, combine eggs, sugar, margarine, and vanilla; mix with hand mixer (affiliate link) for 2 minutes, until well blended. Add flour mixture and sour cream alternately, beginning and ending with flour. Stir in pears with spatula, breaking up fruit so it doesn't clump. Pour into a greased 11x7 inch pan. Evenly spread streusel over the batter.
Bake in 350F oven for about 40-45 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. (This took me 35 in my hot oven.) Serve warm.

Notes

Adapted from the Better Homes and Gardens Best of 1997 Cookbook