Pear Muffins!

I felt like baking tonight since we had pizza (cheese for Lent) with my in-laws & it's the weekend! Woohoo! The bananas are still not ripe enough to bake with (I owe a special someone a banana bread very soon!) Gabriel loves pears & doesn't like sweets so I thought, hmmmmmmmm... I know the perfect thing for my baby:

Yummy, home-baked pear goodness

Pear Muffins
Yields 2 & 1/2 dozen 

• 2 cups flour, sifted
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 TBSp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt 
• 1/2 cup butter, pieced, cold
• 2 eggs, whisked
• 1/2 cup apple sauce*
• 3/4 cup milk (I used skim)
• 1 pear- ripe, skinned, cored & diced into small pieces (about 1 cup)

Preheat oven to 400 F.


Prepare muffin tins with paper liners.


In a large bowl, sift together/combine the flour, sugar, baking powder & salt. Add the chopped, cold butter into the dry ingredients with a pastry blender until the flour is lumpy/grainy.


Fold the eggs, apple sauce, milk & pears into the dry mixture. 


Scoop (I use a medium-sized ice cream scoop) batter into each paper-lined tin (about 2/3 full) . Bake approximately 15-20 minutes, until the tops are slightly golden & a toothpick inserted into the middle of one muffin comes out clean & dry.


Remove from oven & let cool 10 minutes before taking out of the muffin tins... Then allow to cool further on a wire wrack.

Cool muffins

*Lishie tips- If you do not have a pastry blender, no fears! Just use a fork. Most recipes will tell you to use two knives instead but one fork is enough & way easier!

Make sure the butter & milk are cold & the pear is ripe... Also, you can substitute either plain yogurt or sour cream for the apple sauce. Additions (insert in the recipe at the same time as the pear) can be: 1/4 cup nuts (walnuts) or 1/4 cup raisins, even craisins or dried cranberries! And for the pear, you can switch it out with apple... Of course you'd have to call them "Apple Muffins" then! LOL

BTW- Do YOU know the Muffin Man? (Caution- music! :) )