Pear, walnuts and ginger muffins

Those muffins were delicious ! The cake itself was fluffy, light for me perfect. I think I will try to bake this cake again but this time plain. The ginger, per and nuts were lovely combination. Those muffins were packed with them. Although next time I would rather skip the ginger, it was little bit too spicy for me. Anyway you may expect to see this recipe again as I think this cake would be perfect with other fruits, nuts or chocolates. 

Ingredients for 12 - 14 standard size or     6 - 7 big muffins:

• 2 big pears
• 60g ginger from a jar*
• 250 g flour
• 2 and 1/2 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 75g walnuts
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 2 eggs
• 100g sugar
• 100g butter or margarine
• 250 ml milk
• 100g white chocolate
• walnut halves for decoration

* I used ginger in vinegar, but it can be replaced with crystallized ginger  or ground ginger.

Preheat the oven to 180C. Line muffin tin with paper cases.

Peel the pears, remove cores. Chop the pears into small chunks.

Drain the ginger and chop into small chunks. Or if u use crystallized ginger just chop it. Add to the pears, stir and set aside.

Chop the walnuts and set aside. 

Mix together the flour, baking powder, salt, cocoa powder. Stir in the walnuts.If you use the ground ginger add it to the flour mixture.

Whisk the eggs and sugar in an electric mixer until pale and fluffy. Reduce the speed and add alternately the flour mixture, milk and soft margarine. When all ingredients added and batter is smooth stop the mixer. Then gently fold in the ginger and pear mixture. 

Spoon the batter into prepared earlier paper cases. Bake in preheated oven for  20 - 30 minutes until well risen. Remove form the tin to cool down. 

 While muffins cooling down melt the chocolate. Spread the melted chocolate over each muffin top and place half of walnut as a decoration.

Enjoy !

The recipe in Polish. 

Cashew nuts and pear muffins

Cashew nuts and pear muffins are very moist, not too sweet they taste a little bit like pancakes. Although they like pancakes they are more adults treat than children one. The recipe comes form 'New Italian cuisine. Muffins'.

Ingredients for 12-18 muffins*:

• 4 pears
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 150g flour
• 100g wholewheat flour
• 2 and 1/2 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 100g cashew nuts
• 2 eggs
• 100g sugar
• 90ml oil
• 250ml milk
• icing sugar for dusting

* I baked 6 in standard size muffin cases and 6 in large ones (on the picture)

Peel and core the pears. Then slice them on small chunks. Place the pears into a bowl and stir in the lemon juice. Set aside.

Chop the cashew nuts.

Preheat the oven to 180C. Line muffin tin with paper cases or grease them.

Place the flours in a bowl stir in the baking powder, salt and nuts.

In separate bowl, using electric mixer, beat together the eggs, sugar, oil and milk until sugar dissolves. Then add all dry ingredients and using spoon combine them with wet ones. At last, but not at least, fold in the pears with juice. 

Spoon the batter into muffin cases. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes. Then remove from oven, leave in the baking tin for a few minutes and transfer to the wire rack. 

Dust with icing sugar and enjoy.

Custard muffins with pears

There was last, lonely pear in the fruit bowl and I decided to try recipe I found some time ago. The custard muffin with pears were really nice, soft, spongy and very easy to make. I modified the original recipe and I was really happy with the result.

Ingredients for 12 muffins:

• 110g flour
• 2 tbsp custard powder
• 1 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 55g caster sugar
• 30g brown sugar
• 85g milk
• 1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste
• 1 egg
• 55g melted butter
• 1 pear

Preheat the oven to 200C. Line muffin tin with paper cases.

Peel of the pear, remove the core and dice the pear on smaller pieces.

Sift the flour, custard, baking powder, salt and sugars and whisk the together, set aside. In separate jug melt the butter (for example in microwave) cool it down, add egg, vanilla and milk and whisk together. Pour wet ingredients into dry add pear and combine together. Spoon the batter into muffin cases, bake for 20 min and enjoy !

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 !

Pear and fudge muffins

My house was filled with divine, sweet fragrance mixture of baked pears, fudge and coconut, today. I used recipe from this website and changed  it a little bit. Muffins were sweet, moisture and sticky. And this fragrance, I mentioned earlier about, made me to eat one muffin just after being baked and I burned my mouth a little bit.

Ingredients for 12-18 muffins:

• 300g self rising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 85g brown sugar
• 250 ml buttermilk
• 2 eggs
• 100g melted butter
• 3 pears
• 100g soft fudge
• some dessicated coconut

Peel of the pears and dice them on smaller pieces, set aside. Dice the fudges into smaller pieces. Melt the butter.

Line muffin tin with paper cases. Preheat the ove to 200C.

In a big bowl sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, sugar. Whisk them together. Add the pears and part of the fudge pieces.

In a separate bowl whisk the eggs with buttermilk.

Pour this mixture along with melted butter into dry ingredients. Stir everything together but do not over-stir the batter. Spoon the batter into paper cases, sprinkle evenly with leftover fudge and with coconut. Bake for 25-30 min. Place on wire rack to cool down. 

Do not eat hot, as the fruits and fudge needs more time to cool down. Enjoy !