Turkish Caramelized Pear Butter Cinnamon Rolls: Treat Your Friends to an Exotic Brunch

Confession: This recipe was an accident. I had some leftover dough that I didn't know what to do with.... I could've just easily made another loaf of bread like last time. Actually my husband asked for more bread for breakfast, and was shocked that we had eaten the entire loaf a few days before. But I wanted to do something different.

Confession part 2: This was my first time making fruit butter of any kind and also caramel and I don't think I did a good job. But the mess that resulted was so good. My husband ate 3 in a row! Granted he is sort of biased in his opinion, being married to me, and welll since I do all his laundry hahaha. But eating three was a very good sign! Even the next day (this morning) I had another piece with my coffee and it was perfect.

I love that I made this cinnamon rolls with stuff I already in my fridge, like the prepared dough. It was like half of the work was already done. When talking to one of my favorite people, my sister in law, she suggested making it more dessert-like since I was sort of disappointed that the first loaf was more bread like instead of cake like, like banana bread is more cake dessert-ish.

So here is part two of your Turkish bread recipe: 

Don't forget if you did throw the extra almost lb of dough from the previous recipe into the freezer - defrost it in the fridge - not the counter!  Same instructions as before. When the dough is defrosted, you can pull it out of the fridge and start letting it come to room temperature plus some... approx 90 minutes. It seems like a long time but it was okay. I pulled it out and went to church and by the time I was back home it was ready to use. The rest of this took 5-7 minutes to throw together so it would be a perfect brunch. 


Ingredients:

1. almost one pound of leftover Turkish pear coffee bread dough
2. 2 pears, peeled and chopped
3. 1/2 Tbs apple juice
4.  1 + 1/2 tsp lemon juice
5. 1/3 cup sugar
6. 1/4 tsp nutmeg
7. 1/4 tsp cardamom (to mirror flavors in the bread)
8. a dash of salt
9. Confectioners sugar or powdered sugar (for garnish)


Directions:

1. Peel and chop the pears. 

2. Add the pears, apple juice, and lemon juice into a nonstick saucepan.  Once you get the small amount of sauce to boil turn down to low. Cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes or until the pears are soft. 

3. When the pear mixture is softened,  blend it so it looks like applesauce... thick but some liquid part... pourable. I used a food processor and it really didn't do a good job. Maybe a blender or immersion blender would've been better. Or maybe I just didn't have enough liquid. So my pear butter was on the chunky side. Not what I was hoping for but.... it tasted awesome and most of it spread easily on the loaf.  Totally going to try this again because summer is coming and pear butter on fresh biscuits sounds like an awesome way to begin a summer brunch. 

4. Add the spices to the pear mixture.

4. Now for the caramel part.... (deep breath) Hopefully you have done this before. This is the part I need to practice (hahaha).  Take the sugar to a pan and watch it slowly melt and turn amber colored. Once the color changes remove it from the heat. Stir lots!!! This is an understatement. I had crystallized bits in mine because I don't think I was stirring as often as you need to. Cooking is an adventure, right? 

6. Pour the heated sugar (should be in thick liquid form) into the pear mixture. Mine didn't sputter or splash but I have heard it might... so just be careful. Stir it together to combine. 

I was so nevous about this part. V= victory with my fingers crossed! 

7. Roll out the dough into a rectangle shape 

8. Spread the chunky or smooth (depending on how yours came out) caramelized pear butter over the top of the rectangle. 

9. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Evenly roll up the rectangle into a log shape and cut into even pieces. 

 10.  Bake for approx 25 minutes until golden. Sprinkle with fine powdered sugar or icing of your choice. Psst icing is super easy butter & powdered sugar... 


11. Eat with friends and family :) 







Have a great day! From my kitchen to yours