Pear & Whole Wheat Bread for Bread Machine

This bread is lightly sweet and very moist. Now that the pear trees are finished, I am going to try it with grated apples.

I started with the recipe for "Fluffy Pear Bread" on Sparkpeople, and made some modifications.

The loaf I made tonight was almost too large for the machine!

Pear & Whole Wheat Bread for Bread Machine

1.5 cups finely chopped pears
1/2 cup warm water
2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
2 Tb. butter, (I separate into smaller slices)
2Tb. brown sugar, packed and heaped a bit (maybe a tsp. more?)
1 tsp. salt
3 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg ( or less, according to taste & freshness of your nutmeg)
1 cup whole wheat flour (I used a high quality locally milled brand)
2 3/4 cups all purpose flour (I use unbleached)
2 3/8 tsp yeast

Put everything in the machine in the order listed, select "sweet" setting. I chose the lighter crust.

I also help the machine at some point in the initial mixing if some of the flour does not get mixed in.

When the machine beeps to signal the opportunity to add extra ingredients, I check the dough for texture. The first few times I made this, the dough seemed sticky, so I have added a little flour to the original recipe's ingredients. Today it seemed a little dry, so I added a teaspoon of water.

The pears were very soft, almost overripe. If they had been firm I would have cut them much finer.

I have children's liquid medicine dispensers in my kitchen for things like yeast, salt and vanilla. This looks like "just a smidge" over 2.25 tsp of yeast to me.