Chocolate muffins with pears

When I sow this picture for a very first time, I put chocolate muffins with pears and syrup recipe on my must to bake list. In my opinion those muffins look very fancy and, after baking them, have to say they very tasty too. The muffin dough is rich in chocolate and little bit dry, syrup makes it moisture and sweet pear breaks chocolate bitterness. They were not so difficult to make as one my think after seeing the picture. To bake them there is need for large muffin tin (150ml muffin hole capacity). once you  equipped with this tool you may start. 

Lets start with pears. There must be 5 small pears, first they have to be peeled and cored. I used apple core remover, inserted it from the bottom and put in only half way so the stalk intact stayed on in place, then removed core with a knife.  Set aside prepared pears.

Ingredients for syrup:

• 380 ml water
• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
• 160g sugar
• 2 tbsp cocoa

Put water, sugar and vanilla into big sauce pan over low heat. Cook, stirring until sugar dissolves. Bring it to boil. Put prepared pears into hot sugar. Cook for another 10 minutes until pears became tender. Drain pears, put them on a plate and leave for later, add cocoa to hot sugary water. Leave the syrup to simmer for 15 min or until syrup thickens slightly.

Preheat the oven to 200C. Grease muffin tin.

Ingredients for batter:

• 100g dark chocolate
• 100g butter
• 95g flour
• 1tsp baking powder
• 80g sugar
• 1 egg
• 15g cocoa 

Place the chocolate and butter in a big bowl and melt them in microwave. When melted stir well to combine them. Then add the flour, baking powder, sugar, cocoa and egg whisk all ingredients together. Divide the batter evenly between 5 muffin holes and gently press the pears into the centres. Bake for 20 min. When it is ready (check with tooth pick if batter is baked inside) leave in a baking tin for w while then transfer to plates. Do not leave longer in baking tin as removing might be difficult. When they transferred to plates gently pour over prepared earlier syrup. Enjoy !