Earlier this week our lovely friend Anja celebrated her birthday. Anja is part of Lund's Sustainable City Walk a great initiative which provides information on sustainable shopping in Lund. I decided I was going to attempt some seasonal baking for a birthday treat and came across this very tasty looking recipe for pear and ginger muffins.
Then disaster struck (well minor blip anyway) I discovered you cannot get Swedish pears in January. I was quite surprised at this as I always thought of pears as a winter fruit; but no, the pears in this recipe are from The Netherlands :(
That said, it was still rather tasty and I think would work equally well with apples: especially those apples that are a bit grainy and reaching the end of their winter lives.
I changed the recipe slightly (because my sugar coated baked goods have a tendency to burn) but the original can be found here.
Pear and Ginger Muffins
Makes: 18! (although the original recipe said 12, but then it is a Nigella effort and her portions are always a bit suspect).
Ingredients:
2 large pears (1 peeled and finely chopped, the other thinly sliced)
1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 cup of brown sugar
3/4 cup of caster sugar
1 tsp of ginger
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup of flavourless oil
2/3 cup of sour cream
1 tblsp of honey
2 eggs
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius
- Line muffin tins with paper cases
- Mix the brown and caster sugar with the oil, until light and incorporated.
- Whisk in the eggs, honey and then stir in the sour cream.
- In a separate bowl sieve the flour, baking powder and ginger.
- Fold the 'wet' mix into the dry (careful not to over stir)
- Fold in the chopped pears.
- Fill each muffin case about 2/3 full of muffin mix and top with 3 small slice of pear.
- Bake for 20 minutes
- Cool for 5 minutes in the tin.
Enjoy eating with coffee, friends and only a smidgen of guilt that the pears came from The Netherlands.
