Translate

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Look what I found!

I must bake this! Luckily we have prickly pears for sale at our markets here, and I can also find them around town on abandoned plants. I think this sounds like it would be very interesting! Maybe for Mothers Day??? Have any of you out west ever tried something like this this???

Prickly Pear Quick Bread
From Jean Groen

About 12 prickly-pear fruits
1/4 cup melted butter
1 cup minus 1 tablespoon sugar
2 eggs
2 1/4 cups plus 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Scald pears for 1 minute. Peel, halve and seed them. Scoop out 1 cup fruit.
Heat oven to 325 degrees and spray a 9- by 5-inch loaf pan with cooking spray. Put fruit in a large bowl with melted butter, sugar and eggs. Mix well. In another bowl, sift together flour, salt, baking powder and cinnamon. Fold dry ingredients into fruit mixture and mix until well moistened. Pour into prepared pan and let sit for 10-15 minutes. Place in oven and bake for 55 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. (For muffins, divide batter among 12 muffin cups and bake at 400 degrees for about 10 minutes.) Makes 12 servings.

Approximate values per serving: 240 calories, 5 g fat, 42 mg cholesterol, 4 g protein, 45 g carbohydrates, 4 g fiber, 413 mg sodium, 19 percent calories from fat.

11 comments:

Mary said...

Thanks! We have those here at the local Mexican market. I've been wondering if you can root them and plant in the ground. Any idea? I've seen them growing in some yards and they seem to get very big--kinda cool looking. I do want to try cooking them sometime though--just haven't found time yet.

Lisa at Greenbow said...

ANything with sugar and cinnamon has to be good. I will be interested in hearing what you think of them. Do you have prickly pear cactus in your garden so you have your own stock of fruit?

Tootsie said...

never seen a prickly pear...this sounds very interesting!

soulbrush said...

i lurv your recipes....

Julie said...

Mary- yes...you can take a pad of prickly pear plant and put it in the ground and it will root and make a big plant or tree. I have some around here that are 15 ft. high! None in my own yard though...but I have been thinking of starting a few of the thornless variety!

Lisa- No, none in my own yard, but as I told Mary, would like to start a thornless variety of several plants...would love to get a few large ones that are already a fairly good size...then could take a few pads, and definately get fruit off of one that size for special things!

Soul B- You seem like a funky recipe kinda girl, just like me!!! Go for it!

Tootsie- hey girl...check out hte mexican or any outdoor market might have them...or an organic market.

Claude said...

I'm going to have to save this... It looks like our wet spring is gonna make my prickly pears have a bumper crop.

Claude said...

And tell Mary that the pads you get in the store are a variety of Optunia ficus-indica. They will grow and produce a lot of pads to use, very quickly and almost continuously, but they will not survive a freeze.

Julie said...

Claude- yes...you like to make cakes...it will be so fun when your crops come in!!!

Pudgeduck said...

Sounds like a great bread! I will save this one!

Aiyana said...

Well this is interesting. I've never seen the fruits used in baked goods before. Rather than make my usual salad dressing from them, I think I'll try this recipe with this year's batch. Thanks for posting.
Aiyana

Teri said...

Oh gee, I need to bookmark this for when I get back to AZ! Thanks.