m. c. de marco: The New Kitchen Cookbook

Honey Pear Muffins

This is an optionally dairy muffin recipe from The Crepes of Wrath, cut down by a third (because it just seemed like too much stuff and my home-grown pears are not the size of commercial pears). I adjusted for salted butter, added pear spices, corrected typos, and (considering the typos) tossed in some baking powder just to be safe.

Makes a baker’s dozen full-size or 36 mini muffins.

Ingredients

  • 1 ⅔ c. flour
  • ½ tsp. baking soda
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • ¼ tsp. kosher salt
  • dash nutmeg
  • dash clove
  • ½ tsp ground ginger
  • ½ c. salted butter (or shortening)
  • ⅔ c. honey
  • 2 eggs, room temperature
  • ⅓ tsp vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
  • 1 mashed pear
  • 1 diced pear
  • sanding sugar (optional)

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease muffin tin.
  2. Mix dry ingredients.
  3. Cream butter and add honey to the butter (or cream them together if the honey is hard).
  4. Add eggs individually, disregarding appearances, then mashed pear and extract.
  5. Add dry ingredients gradually, then the diced pear.
  6. Spoon into muffin tin (1.5–2 T each for minis, 4–5 T for maxi muffins). Optionally sprinkle with sanding sugar.
  7. Bake for 10–11 minutes (15–18 for maxi) or until the toothpick test. Cool in muffin tin before removing.