walnut pear coffee cake

This is a delicious coffee cake with some fun layers in the middle. It makes a great start to any day, preferably paired with a cup of coffee:)

Ingredients
2 medium ripe pears, peeled and chopped
1/2 c. sugar

1/2 c. applesauce
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. flour

3/4 c. wheat flour

3/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 c. sour cream

Topping

1 1/2 c. chopped walnuts, divided

1/3 c. packed brown sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/3 c. flour

1/4 c. butter


In a bowl, combine the sugar, applesauce, eggs, and vanilla. Add dry ingredients and mix in sour cream.

In another bowl combine brown sugar, cinnamon, and flour. Cut in butter until crumbly. Add 1 cup chopped walnuts.

In a greased 9 inch round cake pan, pour 2/3 of the batter. Chop pears (toss with a little lemon juice if you chop them before you need them) and sprinkle over the batter. Put half of the crumb topping on the pears. Pour the remaining 1/3 of the batter over top. Sprinkle the rest of the crumb topping and the 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts.

Bake at 350 for 45 minutes (I baked mine in a convection oven, it will probably take a while longer in a regular oven). Enjoy!

counter space...

...or lack thereof:) You see, I've been sort of busy these days. I haven't been able to do much in the kitchen because every flat surface is covered with either fruit, canning supplies, veggies, cutting boards, dehydrator trays, or dishes drying waiting to start all over again. Even the kitchen table was looking a little overwhelming, which is a bit of an inconvience since the kitchen table also serves as my craft table (since my old one was replaced with a changing table and is waiting patiently in the garage while we finish the addition), our paying bills station, laundry folding/sorting station, oh, and every once in a while I actually shove everything to the side clean off the table so we can sit and eat.

Thanks to my mother-in-law for helping me get started and snapping a few pictures of the process!

It all started when I got 100 lbs of pears and 15 pounds of cheeries. What was I thinking? Oh, right, I was thinking I was ordering 25 lb boxes, not 50 lb boxes.

Then it continued with the first frost (and a week of snow!) in the forecast. That meant we had to pull a bunch of stuff out of the garden.



All this led to:

~quarts and quarts of canned pears

~canned cheeries

~canned pearsauce (think applesauce with pears instead:)

~cinnamon pear jam

~cranberry pear jam

~dehydrated pear chips

~dehydrated veggie chips

~lots of new recipes with fresh pears (I'll share later)

Mason was a big help!

And my counters now? Well, Ryan built me an awesome shelf out of scrap wood to hold all those jars. The kitcken is starting to get back to normal...just in time to get that box of apples:)