Whisked Away Wednesday: Pear Muffins

Happy Wednesday everyone! It's pear season! We had a breakfast potluck at work this week and I was in charge of bringing doughnuts. Now, I am fond of doughnuts, I even posted a quick doughnut recipe a while back. I don't, however, believe that they are the best way to start a busy day at work. I wanted to bring something that was sweet and indulgent, but not quite as unhealthy as a big ol' doughnut. I had some pears sitting in the fruit bowl, but when I googled pear bread and muffins, all the recipes I found called for shredding the pears before incorporating them into the batter. I wanted to use big hearty chunks of pear! I found this recipe for Peach Almond Bread on the Amanda's Cookin blog. I can't bring anything to work with nuts in it (allergies), so I modified the recipe and used pears instead of peaches. I also made it into muffins, not bread. The muffins turned out DELIGHTFUL! Seriously, my new favorite muffin! They are light and filled with the succulent flavor of pear mingling with vanilla, cinnamon, and ginger. You should probably just make these now... you've made it half way through the week right?? So you deserve them!

Pear Muffins

Based on a recipe for Peach Almond Bread from Amanda's Cookin

Ingredients

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ginger

2 cups peeled, chopped pears, (about 2 medium pears)

Preheat oven to 375 Fahrenheit.

Sorry about this ugly picture... but that's what it looked like! Batter aint always pretty... but it makes some tasty muffins!

Beat together first six ingredients (I used my hand mixer.)

Mix together remaining ingredients and add to wet ingredient mixture (don't overmix, using a good old fashioned wooden spoon helps).

Line muffin pans with liners. The recipe ended up making an odd number of muffins (15), so I had to use two muffin pans. A little tip I learned is to fill the unused muffin tins with a bit of water so that the muffins cook evenly.

Divide batter between 15 muffin tins, filling about 3/4 of the way full.

Sprinkle with streusel topping (see below for recipe).

Cook for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown and firm.

Streusel Topping

5 tablespoons butter (don't use margarine!)

1/4 cup flour

1/4 cup white sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Mix together flour, sugar, and cinnamon. Cut in butter until crumbly. Sprinkle over muffins before baking.

Nobody missed having doughnuts at all!

Have a great rest of your week!

Foodie Friday